WINNSBORO, S.C. _ Donald Trump's approval numbers are faltering, and he's reportedly facing an obstruction-of-justice investigation.
None of that matters to Ralph Norman, the Republican front-runner in South Carolina's special House election.
At a campaign stop with retirees and at a fundraiser with physicians, at a GOP dinner and in an interview, Norman was vocal in his support for Trump before Tuesday's special election �� a reminder of the embattled president's continued potency with the GOP base in the country's many conservative districts.
"I'm in it because I think now's a special time," Norman said in a campaign speech in Winnsboro this past week. "We can talk about President Trump going in. I'm excited about serving with him."
Despite the investigations and controversies surrounding the Trump administration, the conservative base remains strongly, and defensively, in the president's corner, which is vividly on display here in the Fifth District.
Unless and until that changes in congressional districts like this one across the country, strategists say, it's unlikely that Trump will suffer significant backlash from lawmakers in his own party, no matter how intense the frustrations of those Republicans who worry about a bad national environment for the party headed into 2018, fueled by the president's unpopularity.
"It's safe to run to Trump in that district, for the most part. The outlier would be a Republican right now who's not running to Trump," said Chip Felkel, a South Carolina Republican strategist. "In districts like SC-5, candidates and incumbents are going to gravitate toward the Trump administration until poll numbers suggest it's at their own peril."
The special election to fill the seat vacated by Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has been little-noticed, compared with a close biter race unfolding in Georgia on the same day, in a more moderate district where Trump is a much bigger liability. But the contest here, in a district that stretches from just south of Charlotte, N.C., through Rock Hill and down to the Columbia capital region, will offer a test of the Republican base's energy five months into Trump's term, at a time when Democrats are eager to expand their map.
Norman, a real estate developer and conservative former state representative, is heavily favored to win. He is competing against Democrat Archie Parnell, a low-key lawyer who spent a significant part of his career overseas with Goldman Sachs, though on the trail his style is less worldly than it is enthusiastic and earnest.
For Norman, the fear is that turnout will be low, in part because families are taking off on summer vacation, and in part because voters assume that the election has already happened. The GOP primary earlier this year went to a bitter runoff, and Norman eked out a win over the more moderate Tommy Pope, with both candidates competing over who could align themselves more closely with Trump.
It's a tactic Norman continues to employ in the general election campaign, and Trump has recorded a robocall to boost his campaign.
"If he does nothing else��what (Trump) did with Neil Gorsuch told me what he was about," Norman said at a party dinner Friday night, echoing former U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, who in introductory remarks also praised Trump's nomination of Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. "It told me what his heart was. For those who said, is he conservative, is he not conservative, folks, Donald Trump is a conservative. He put somebody to be in there for life."
Norman doesn't even object to Trump's Twitter habit, the one thing Republican lawmakers have generally felt comfortable criticizing.
"The tweets are not popular," Norman said in an interview, though he stressed that he has no problem with them. "People can read a tweet or they can't read a tweet. If they don't want to receive it, they don't have to. He's got millions of followers. I see no problem with it. The majority of people think it's inciting opposition to him. I'm fine with it. Other than that, they're excited about what he did with the Supreme Court, excited about the fact that he's trying to rein in government."
In interviews, voters often blamed the media first and Democrats second for many of Trump's troubles.
In setting after setting, voters indicated they are uninterested in the investigations surrounding Trump. That includes the examination of potential ties between Russia and his campaign, and the news last week that special counsel Robert Mueller is exploring whether the president may have obstructed justice.
At worst, they think the whole thing is a ploy concocted by the media and sore-loser Democrats.
"I don't think Russia leads to him," said Jim Welsh, a doctor from Rock Hill and old basketball partner of Norman's.
In the interview, Norman made it clear that he takes Russia seriously and believes Mueller is credible, with an "impeccable background." But he also charged the media with overhyping the investigations.
"He's presumed guilty," Norman said. "Let them come up with some hard facts and present the case, but I almost think they've judged him before they've found anything."
It's not that Trump is immune to backlash even here. Several voters interviewed, including a co-host of the Winnsboro event, Pam Laird, expressed annoyance with Trump's Twitter habit.
Katon Dawson, the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, said the onslaught of negative developments for Trump would to take its toll everywhere, including in deeply Republican districts like this one, just as it has in Georgia and, earlier, in Kansas.
"The difference is the margins," he said. "It's going to be tighter than normal because of Trump's ratings right now."
The question is how tight. Norman acknowledges that if he wins but the race is close �� "A win's a win but we need to win this by seven, eight points at least, not four or five" �� Democrats will sense an opportunity to invest in future races here.
But in what is expected to be a low-turnout election, Norman's team says he simply needs the Trump voters to show up.
