“Our country is winning again,” Trump said as he addressed both chambers of Congress during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. “In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it.”

“Here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud: the men’s gold medal Olympic hockey team,” Trump said.

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Both Republicans and Democrats stood up to applaud the team in a rare moment of bipartisanship during the speech.

But for Trump, it was another instance of tying athletes and celebrities to his administration and its policies ahead of the midterm elections.

But the appearance was more than a feel-good celebration. It underscored a broader strategy Trump has leaned into ahead of the midterms: surrounding himself with athletes and celebrities as cultural validators at a time when his approval ratings have slipped among key voter groups.

Four days before the U.S. men’s hockey team descended on Washington, University of Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton made a surprise appearance with Trump during his rally in Rome, Georgia, along with another football legend, U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas Herschel Walker.

“Gunner is a big star and a really talented quarterback,” Trump said. “But I heard, much more importantly, he’s a Trump fan. So he was standing at the plane.”

Trump’s event in the state was meant to show voters they are better off economically with Republicans in control, something the presence of the star Georgia quarterback helps symbolize.

Erin Maguire, a GOP operative who has worked on past presidential super PACs, told the Washington Examiner that Trump surrounding himself with athletes and celebrities was about “cultural alignment.”

“Sports figures, entertainers, and teams bring audiences that aren’t plugged into political media but are highly engaged elsewhere,” Maguire said. “When politics shows up in those spaces, it reaches voters who might otherwise tune campaigns out entirely.”

Trump, for his part, is also relying heavily on celebrities. He has recruited rap superstar Nicki Minaj to help sell the administration’s “Trump Accounts” initiative. In his first trip after delivering the State of the Union, Trump flew down to Corpus Christi, Texas, with actor Dennis Quaid on Air Force One for a speech on energy and the economy.

“If [celebrities] start talking about an issue, especially if other people aren’t talking about it, then that issue is going to go on steroids,” said Mark Harvey, a professor at the University of Saint Mary and author of Celebrity Influence: Politics, Persuasion, and Issue-based Advocacy. “They are better at gaining attention to an issue than most politicians are. Even most presidents are.”

However, Harvey cautioned that “research isn’t super strong” on the effectiveness of campaign surrogates, and some endorsements could lead to backlash.

Trump’s emphasis on athletes at public events comes as his approval ratings have taken a hit across the board, according to a recent CNN poll. Among men, Trump’s approval rating has dropped 14 points from February 2025 to February 2026. Among voters aged 18-34, his approval ratings have dropped 16 points in the same time period. Among Latino voters, his approval ratings dropped 19 points, and among independents, his approval declined 15 points, a major warning sign for the GOP ahead of November.

Those poll numbers don’t bode well for the midterm elections, and without Trump on the ballot, it will be harder to convince non-MAGA voters to stick with the GOP. Celebrities and athletes are not likely to be a Hail Mary for the GOP’s midterm fortunes, even Republicans admit, but they could help.

“Will celebrity engagement alone change a midterm environment? No, because turnout, the economy, and voter sentiment still drive outcomes,” Maguire said. “But cultural relevance helps sustain enthusiasm and visibility, which can matter on the margins when campaigns are fighting for attention as much as votes.”

Cultural relevance matters and could last longer than just one election cycle, as Trump well knows.

The president first came to prominence as a socialite real estate developer in 1970s New York because of tabloid outlets such as the New York Post. He built upon that brand by starting casinos, writing books, with The Art of the Deal being on the New York Times bestseller list for 48 weeks, and appearing on television. The first season of The Apprentice averaged 20.7 million viewers a week alone.

All of that meant that by the time Trump announced his first presidential campaign, he was better known than almost any other Republican running. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign scattered the coalition of both parties, with the GOP building inroads among white, working-class voters who had long voted Democratic, while shedding the white, college-educated vote that had been their mainstay.

Harrison Fields, a former White House spokesman, told the Washington Examiner that celebrities and athletes do not just help get attention — they also give voters the social permission to publicly embrace Trump and his policies.

“It allows people to be like ‘I’m not really engaged in politics, but it’s good to see that linebacker there, it’s good to see Nick Saban golfing with the president of the United States,’” Fields said. “It allows people to feel comfortable being a conservative, because when they see Brett Favre willing to go on stage, if Brett Favre can go out on stage and support President Trump, then I can too.”

White House spokesman Davis Ingle underscored the sentiment to the Washington Examiner, saying that “everyone who wants to Make America Great Again – from celebrities to everyday American patriots – are welcome in this historic political movement that President Donald Trump is leading.”