New Polling “Paints a Grim Picture” for Republican Senate Candidates in AZ, NC, MI

New polling from The New York Times and Siena College finds GOP Senate candidates losing in Arizona, North Carolina, and Michigan as voters “shun” Republicans in these key battlegrounds. The polls find Senators Martha McSally and Thom Tillis are both “polling below 40 percent despite having recently aired a barrage of television advertisements.” Of course, these Republicans have been in danger all cycle long because of their records — but it’s clear that the toxic political climate is exacerbating those vulnerabilities, particularly on health care. Read more on the “grim picture” for Mitch McConnell’s increasingly tenuous majority:

New York Times: Trump’s Sagging Popularity Drags Down Republican Senate Candidates

A New York Times/Siena College poll paints a grim picture for Republicans in Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina as voters shun candidates aligned with the president.

By Jonathan Martin and Matt Stevens

June 25, 2020

Key Points:

• President Trump’s erratic performance in office and his deteriorating standing in the polls is posing a grave threat to his party’s Senate majority, imperiling incumbents in crucial swing states and undermining Republican prospects in one of the few states they had hoped to gain a seat, according to a new poll of registered voters by The New York Times and Siena College.

• Senator Martha McSally of Arizona, a Republican, trails her Democratic opponent, Mark Kelly, by nine percentage points while Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina is behind his Democratic rival, Cal Cunningham, by three. Both incumbents are polling below 40 percent despite having recently aired a barrage of television advertisements.

• In Michigan, which Senate Republicans viewed as one of their few opportunities to go on the offensive this year, Senator Gary Peters, a first-term Democrat, is up by 10 percentage points over John James…

• The poll showed that the same voters who are fleeing the president — highly educated white Americans, many of them once-reliable Republicans — are providing an advantage to Democratic Senate candidates.

• Jill Cohen, a 52-year-old resident of Tempe, Ariz, who was a Republican until 2016, said she would have a difficult time supporting a Senate candidate who “aligns herself” with Mr. Trump and his views… She said she longed for more consensus-oriented lawmakers and would vote for Mr. Kelly. “I really like Kyrsten Sinema for that reason because she is willing to go across the aisle and work bipartisan,” she said, referring to Arizona’s other senator. “And I think Kelly would, too.”

• The Times survey of battleground states is not the only recent polling that illustrates how the president’s unpopularity is endangering his party’s candidates. A recent Des Moines Register poll in Iowa — which found Mr. Trump up by just one percentage point in a state he carried by about 10 in 2016 — showed Senator Joni Ernst trailing by three points against Theresa Greenfield, a first-time candidate.

• Yet with Republicans defending a number of competitive seats this year, the majority is now clearly within reach for Democrats. In addition to Arizona, North Carolina and Iowa, Republicans have vulnerable incumbents in Colorado and Maine, two states that Mr. Biden is favored to win.

• Further, two Senate Republicans are facing competitive re-elections this year in Georgia, a fast-changing state where surveys have shown Mr. Trump effectively tied with Mr. Biden. And in Montana, the state’s popular Democratic governor, Steve Bullock, is challenging Senator Steve Daines.

• [Fern Fousse, an 84-year-old Tucson, Ariz., resident] said she had also become disillusioned with Ms. McSally after watching her unsuccessful Senate campaign in 2018. “Martha McSally’s campaign has been so negative,” Ms. Fousse said. “Mark Kelly sounds like a nice person, a winner and someone who can work with both parties.”

• Michael Maddox, a 60-year-old teacher from Fayetteville, N.C., said he had been disturbed by Mr. Trump’s stated desire to slow coronavirus testing and by his use of racist language, describing the pandemic as “Kung Flu.”

• “We’ve gotta get him out of there,” Mr. Maddox said, “and I think one of the ways to help do that is to try to remove some of the folks who support his agenda.” Mr. Maddox said he has been unnerved by what he said was Mr. Tillis’s “silence” in the face of these and other remarks by Mr. Trump.

• Some of the Republicans are… taking the unusual step of calling for a series of debates, a tactic incumbents turn to only in times of peril because they don’t want to hand attention to lesser-known opponents. Yet for voters who are eager to register their opposition against Mr. Trump in every conceivable way, such ploys may have little impact.

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