Trump-backed candidate Ralph Alvarado scrubs president from campaign website after primary win

WASHINGTON, DC: After winning his primary, Ralph Alvarado, the former Kentucky state senator running as the Republican nominee for Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, quietly removed most high-profile mentions of President Donald Trump from his campaign website.

Trump endorsed Alvarado, but sometime between June 9 and August 24, Alvarado changed his online messaging. NBC News confirmed the changes with screenshots in a report published Tuesday, August 25.

Ralph Alvarado’s campaign downplays Trump website changes

Trump backed Alvarado before his May primary, calling him a true MAGA ally and giving what he called his "Complete and Total Endorsement."

He told his supporters to get behind Alvarado. When asked about the website updates, Alvarado's campaign manager, Andy Westberry, brushed off any concerns.

He told NBC News that the campaign has continued to highlight Trump’s endorsement and that a photo of Alvarado with Trump still appears elsewhere on the campaign site.

Alvarado’s homepage previously branded him an “AMERICA FIRST FIGHTER” and declared, “President Trump needs more allies in Congress to deliver on his bold vision to Make America Great Again. With your help, I will be that fighter.”

Trump’s approval slump reshapes GOP campaign strategy

NBC News analyst Sahil Kapur sees the website overhaul as a sign of the broader messaging challenge Republicans face.

Trump’s approval ratings have slipped, making it tougher for GOP candidates, even those in areas he won easily, to figure out how to talk about him.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll from late August shows that while 82% of Republicans still approve of Trump, only 35% say they strongly approve.

Among everyone surveyed, just 13% strongly support him, a number CNN’s Aaron Blake points out is unusually low for a sitting president.

These website tweaks aren’t happening in isolation. Republican candidates across the country are trying to decide just how closely they want to align themselves with Trump as the midterms approach.

They’re caught between his grip on the party base and the reality that enthusiasm for him appears to be fading among other voters.

So far, Alvarado’s campaign hasn’t signaled any new shifts in messaging beyond the updated website reported by NBC News.

Democratic nominee Zach Dembo, on the other hand, accused his opponent of changing his tune for political reasons.

“My opponent’s at it again, claiming to be Trump’s guy when it helped him, then deleting any mention of the President from his site because the latest poll told him he should,” Dembo told NBC News. “It reeks of a career politician’s desperation.”