“Map Shifts” As “Republicans Grow Nervous About Losing the Senate”

GOP “Increasingly Nervous,”  Warning About “Bleak Picture” That “Could Cost Them Their Majority”

A new round of reporting this weekend revealed just how nervous Republicans are about Democrats’ rising chances in the fight for the majority. NBC’s Meet the Press took a closer look at how the Senate battlegrounds continue to shift in Democrats’ favor, while the Washington Post reported that Republicans continue to “grow nervous about losing the Senate” and The Hill detailed the increasing concern among Senate Republicans that “their majority [is] in danger.” 

Republican candidates have been forced on defense as President Trump’s management of the crisis comes under intense scrutiny. Despite this, vulnerable Senate Republicans continue to praise Trump’s dangerously inadequate coronavirus response, insisting there’s “no daylight” between themselves and the administration.

• Republican strategist: The Senate map “is a bleak picture.” Republicans have grown “increasingly nervous” about their chances as the Trump administration and GOP’s “handling of the pandemic and rising enthusiasm among Democratic voters dims their electoral prospects.” [Washington Post]

• GOP Senators worry response to coronavirus pandemic “could cost them their majority.” Republican Senators are privately arguing “that President Trump’s handling of the pandemic has put their majority in danger” as more polls show that once-safe incumbents are facing strong Democratic challengers and now tough re-election fights. [The Hill]

• Campaign analysts say “the battle for the Senate seems to have tilted in the Democrats’ favor” Senate Republicans are “facing a tough campaign-year” as more and more races move in the direction of the Democrats and Republicans are forced to defend their seats and the Trump administration’s unpopular coronavirus response. [NBC News]

“While Republicans spent the off-year taking these battleground states for granted, Democrats focused on the issues that matter to voters and built strong campaigns that have outraised incumbents and are moving the map in our direction,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “Republicans are saddled with their own toxic records, and now they also own a failed response to the coronavirus pandemic that’s taken tens of thousands of lives and millions of American jobs.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 

Watch NBC’s Meet The Press:

Washington Post: Republicans grow nervous about losing the Senate amid worries over Trump’s handling of the pandemic

By Seung Min Kim and Mike DeBonis

• Republicans are increasingly nervous they could lose control of the Senate this fall as a potent combination of a cratering economy, President Trump’s handling of the pandemic and rising enthusiasm among Democratic voters dims their electoral prospects.

• In recent weeks, GOP senators have been forced into a difficult political dance as polling shifts in favor of Democrats: touting their own response to the coronavirus outbreak without overtly distancing themselves from a president whose management of the crisis is under intense scrutiny but who still holds significant sway with Republican voters.

• “It is a bleak picture right now all across the map, to be honest with you,” said one Republican strategist closely involved in Senate races who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss concerns within the party. “This whole conversation is a referendum on Trump, and that is a bad place for Republicans to be. But it’s also not a forever place.”

• Republicans have privately become alarmed at the situation in key races where they are counting on GOP incumbents such as Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Thom Tillis (N.C.) to hold the line.

• But a return to normalcy ahead of the elections is far from a given as the death toll continues to rise and economic data paints a grim picture, meaning the president’s handling of the pandemic could be the determining factor not only for his reelection but for Republicans’ ability to hold on to the Senate. In short, as goes Trump, so probably goes the Senate majority.

• “The political environment is not as favorable as it was a few months ago,” said another Republican, one of a half dozen officials working on Senate races who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly assess the party’s outlook.

• The first quarter of 2020 was also a boon in fundraising for Democrats, with 10 challengers outraising GOP opponents in seats currently held by Republicans: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North Carolina and South Carolina. The only closely watched race where the Republican incumbent raised more cash than the Democrat was Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa.

• Republicans warned there are clear obstacles — none more so than strong Democratic fundraising, and the fear that small-dollar Democratic donors will be more resilient in the economic downturn than high-dollar GOP donors.

• “Everyone’s fortunes are tied to the economy,” said a particularly pessimistic Republican official. “It’s going to be a tsunami.”

The Hill: GOP senators worry Trump, COVID-19 could cost them their majority

By Alexander Bolton

• Senate Republicans looking at polls showing GOP incumbents losing ground are concerned that President Trump’s handling of the pandemic has put their majority in danger.

• While Republican senators acknowledge that Trump’s popular support is tough to poll, some are concerned about surveys showing his approval rating below that of all 50 governors and other world leaders.

• Compounding their anxiety are recent polls showing Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), a once-safe incumbent, now trailing his Democratic opponent, Gov. Steve Bullock, and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who was also seen as cruising to reelection, in a dead heat with Democrat Theresa Greenfield.

• Incumbent GOP Sens. Cory Gardner (Colo.) and Martha McSally (Ariz.) are well behind in the polls, while Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) are in toss-up races.

Washington Post (Opinion): Why the GOP may lose everything

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

• Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) says that when he first announced he would run for the U.S. Senate, he “didn’t know what Montana and the country was going to look like in the short period thereafter.” With the covid-19 crisis, all his time has been taken up by being a governor, not a candidate. So far, that has only helped him in his campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Steve Daines.

• In Maine, House Speaker Sara Gideon, a Democrat seeking to end the long career of Republican Sen. Susan Collins, says the pandemic has “laid bare the inequities that already existed” and underscored the need for a “vision of what it means to work together and for each other instead of trying to sow divisiveness.” This brings home Gideon’s case against Collins’s willingness to ally with President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), two of the most divisive figures in American politics.

• Colorado’s former governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat with a good chance of ousting incumbent Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, expresses a sense of gravity about this campaign that he never felt in his races for mayor of Denver or governor.

• And Democrat Cal Cunningham, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who is facing incumbent Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), says that many North Carolinians today feel “an urgency that did not exist prior to March of this year” about “health coverage . . . about jobs, the economy.”

• If Bullock, Gideon, Hickenlooper and Cunningham all win, Democrats will likely take over the U.S. Senate and end McConnell’s days as majority leader.

• And they are not the only challengers with a decent shot at Republican seats. In Arizona, Democrat Mark Kelly has been running ahead of Republican Sen. Martha McSally, and Republicans face vulnerabilities in Iowa, Georgia, possibly Kansas and perhaps even in South Carolina. McConnell, though favored, faces a spirited opponent in Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot. 

###