President Donald Trump likes to play make-believe with his supporters.

"Just close your eyes," he tells them, "and pretend I'm on the ballot." It's a typically self-involved appeal from someone who has been the center of the nation's political gravity for more than a decade.

Now, he's finishing the midterms with a cross-country blitz of campaign rallies that allow him to bask in applause when he's otherwise profoundly unpopular.