The Trump campaign’s total takeover of the Republican National Committee may have cost some Republican congressional candidates in 2018, and they have no plans to change course for 2020. ProPublica reports that Team Trump's control over the RNC extends to denying down-ballot candidates valuable information, basically to protect Donald Trump’s ego.
In 2018, Nancy Pelosi made clear she did not care if Democratic House candidates distanced themselves from her. It was about a majority, not about her ego. That’s … not how Donald Trump operates, and his campaign, led by Brad Parscale, is all about stroking Trump’s ego as much as he wants. As a result, the Trump-controlled RNC “has excluded critical ‘voter scores’ on the president from the analytics it routinely provides to GOP candidates and committees nationwide, with the aim of electing down-ballot Republicans.” That prevents ego damage on two fronts: candidates may not know that it would be helpful for them to distance themselves from Trump, and there’s less damaging information out there to be leaked. But it means that down-ballot Republicans are in the dark about a key campaign factor.
”It’s definitely hurting the party not to release that information. I wish we could have handed it over,” an unnamed former RNC data staffer said. A state party’s executive director said “What voters in our state think about Donald Trump matters. There are people who loved our governor but were turned off by the president. We deliver different messages to people who need to be convinced to come out to our side. How are we supposed to run campaigns if we’re flying blind on thinking about the president?”
The thing is, Team Trump does not care. Because it’s always and only all about Donald.