Trump seeks to turn his failure to build the wall into a campaign rallying cry

The strategy comes with serious risks. It largely assumes that despite Trump’s poor poll numbers and his setback in the midterms, he remains popular enough to rely on the same strategy that delivered him the White House through a thin electoral college victory even as he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.

“He used immigration pretty effectively in 2018 to motivate voters, but the question is whether it’s going to be enough in the states he needs in 2020,” said Jennifer E. Duffy, a nonpartisan election analyst at the Cook Political Report. “In places like Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Pennsylvania and Arizona, can it get the job done?”…

“You can argue about the details, but strategically, it works,” said former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally.

“The president wants Beto O’Rourke out there, in contrast, saying that walls kill people and we shouldn’t have walls. That could be a snapshot of the 2020 election,” Gingrich said of the former Democratic congressman from Texas, a potential presidential contender.