“Now I don’t know if it’s transferable,” President Donald Trump said of his supporters‘ energy at recent events. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images Trump says he doesn’t know if his success will transfer to 2018 Republicans

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that although he knows he’s popular with voters, he doesn’t know whether his success will carry over to Republicans running for office in 2018.

Trump described the energy at some of his recent events, saying that the “level of love” during a recent speech in support of House candidate Rick Saccone — who on Wednesday conceded last week’s special election in Pennsylvania to Democrat Conor Lamb — was “incredible,” and calling an earlier rally in December in Pensacola, Florida, “rocking.” The Senate candidate he backed in that speech, Roy Moore, also lost his bid against a Democrat in a special election in Alabama.


“Now I don’t know if it’s transferable,” he added during a Generation Next Summit panel at the White House. “They say a lot of it is not transferable. They may like me. They may vote for me. They’re all saying I’m going to do great in 2020. … But they don’t know if it’s transferable. I hope it’s transferable, because we have to do our agenda. We have to win in ’18. We have to get the agenda. We need more Republicans.”

But when it comes to polls, Trump is reluctant to believe the numbers.

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“We have a tremendous amount of support,” he said. “It’s sort of an interesting thing — sometimes, they say, you add 9 [points]. Whatever Trump’s poll numbers are, add 9. People don’t want to talk about it, they don’t want to be bothered. But when they get into the voting booth, they say, ‘Vote Trump.’”

