The midterm elections won’t keep Trump from college football on Saturday. A hurricane might

WASHINGTON (AP) — The midterm elections are looming and the first hurricane of the Atlantic Season is menacing the Gulf Coast.

But President Donald Trump is really, really hoping the weather doesn’t stop him from going to another big college football game — this one in Alabama on Saturday night.

“Well, hurricane and football? I love Alabama. I gotta go to the game. It’d be awfully hard,” Trump said Wednesday, when asked if Hurricane Isaias — and a forecast track which has parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Florida bracing for significant impacts — might alter his plans.

Trump had been set to visit Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa when Alabama hosts Georgia in a Top 10 matchup, following an afternoon rally in Tennessee.

Officials are still discussing how the storm might affect the game. But if it happens and Trump is there, it would be the 10th college football game he’s attended as president since 2017 — including the late September game in Knoxville when Texas topped Tennessee 20-17.

Trump told reporters on Wednesday “if there’s a hurricane, I don’t want to do anything” to take the focus of first responders and law enforcement away from the storm, saying he wanted people to be safe.

“We’ll have to see,” he said.

It’s unusual to mix football and midterm politics

A president trying to give his party a midterm boost typically wouldn’t even contemplate going to two college football games so close to Election Day. But Trump’s longtime love of sports — and big crowds — are often key factors in his travel schedule.

Live sports — especially big games that attract casual fans nationwide — are one of the few televised programs that can still draw large, real-time audiences. But mixing sports and politics can be tricky: Trump received cheers but also boos when he was shown on Tennessee’s jumbotron, despite being in a deep red state.

“I think what they’re trying to do is get this broad cast: trying to raise enthusiasm, particularly among young men,” said University of Richmond political scientist Dan Palazzolo, who has researched, written and taught about the intersection of politics and sports.

Tennessee and Alabama are “safe turf,” Palazzolo said, and Trump “clearly sees sports as a kind of way to connect with a certain part of the base.”

While presidents usually visit key swing states leading up to elections, Trump’s sinking approval ratings mean some GOP candidates may be looking to distance themselves from the increasingly unpopular Iran war and the higher gasoline prices it’s caused.

The White House says Trump attending football games — even in reliably Republican states — can energize his core supporters around the country. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers described the president as “the greatest champion of college sports in American history” and said that Trump has used his executive powers and championed congressional efforts to try to overhaul how the sport is governed.

Trump is now a week into what he said would be 32 days of travel ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3 — including a visit last week to Alabama and other stops in Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio and Nebraska. Swings in coming weeks will take him to Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Kansas and Alaska, among other places.

Presidents have used sports for political gains before. But not like this

Richard Nixon publicly leaned into his fierce love of football to ”make a difference politically by capturing the Midwest, working class values,” Palazzolo said. His successor, Gerald Ford, was a standout University of Michigan center and used his playing days as a key component of his folksy personal style when campaigning.

But Trump has made sporting events a big part of his second term. A onetime owner of the USFL’s New Jersey Generals, Trump recently attended the Presidents Cup and flew to his golf course for the Irish Open.

He was at the World Cup final, the NBA finals and the NCAA football championship game, while marking his 80th birthday with a UFC extravaganza on the White House lawn.

In 2025 alone, Trump went to the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, the Ryder Cup, a New York Yankees game and the U.S. Open men’s final, as well as UFC fights and the NCAA wrestling championships.

“I think it helps the brand more than anything else. Because, I think his brand is ‘Sports Guy,’” said Dave Mowery, an Alabama-based consultant who has worked on campaigns for both parties.

“I know everything is political,” Mowery said. “But it almost puts him above politics and into that type of guy that is seen in the box with the people.”

In some states, there’s the risk of backlash

Mowery, a Georgia fan who plans to attend Saturday’s game against Alabama, said a presidential visit means fans have to cope with additional security and arriving early to sit in the stands long before the game begins.

He said not everyone there will support Trump, though few will be frustrated enough about the disruptions to vote for Democrats on that issue alone. Seeing the president flash on the scoreboard, or wave to the crowd from a private box, probably won’t win him votes from the crowd, either, Mowery said.

Palazzolo said he thinks it’s a “time-drain” for a president to go to a football game when there’s no evidence it can sway voter behavior — and he said it risks backlash, especially in parts of the country where football remains bipartisan with “conservatives and liberals finding common ground at the ballpark.”

Mowery said the difference between attending a big game in the South versus other parts of the country is that college football is the top attraction. That’s in contrast to NFL games, which might be bigger draws in other, more northern battleground states.

He also said it’s no accident that Trump has stuck to attending marquee college matchups.

“If ‘Sports Guy’ helps drive the brand, then you want to be at the top of that food chain,” Mowery said. “He wants to go to the best game on the board. He wants to go to the top of the pops.”