Republican Operatives “Increasingly Worried” About Losing Senate Majority

One High-Ranking GOP Senate Aide: “I Am Very Glad My Boss Isn’t on the Ballot This Cycle”

A new CNN report out today details the growing concern among GOP political operatives that a “very, very tough environment” has increasingly put their Senate majority at risk in November. It’s the latest in an increasingly common series of reports that reveal just how nervous Republicans are about Democrats’ rising chances in the fight to flip the Senate. While the battle for Senate control has been moving in Democrats’ direction for months, GOP strategists are now becoming more and more worried that President Trump’s disastrously inadequate response to the coronavirus pandemic “may drag other Republicans down with him.”

One high-ranking Republican Senate aide even admitted: “I am very glad my boss isn’t on the ballot this cycle.”

Democrats have steadily expanded the Senate map this cycle with impressive challengers, record-breaking grassroots fundraising, and a clear focus on the issues that matter to voters, like defending health care protections and lowering costs for hardworking families.

“Unfortunately for Mitch McConnell and the NRSC, the number of vulnerable Senate Republicans on the ballot this cycle keeps growing — and they’re increasingly at risk of losing their seats and the GOP’s majority,” said DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss. “Republicans can try to point fingers and blame the White House, but the fact is they’re losing ground with voters because of their toxic records in Washington attacking protections for pre-existing conditions, refusing to lower prescription drug costs, and handing out tax breaks to wealthy corporate special interests.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

CNN: GOP operatives worry Trump will lose both the presidency and Senate majority

By Michael Warren and Ryan Nobles

May 28, 2020

Key Points: 

• A little more than three months ago, as Democrats cast their ballots in the Nevada caucuses, Republicans felt confident about their chances in 2020… Today, that view has drastically changed.

• “Put it this way, I am very glad my boss isn’t on the ballot this cycle,” said one high-ranking GOP Senate aide.

• Republican strategists are increasingly worried that Trump is headed for defeat in November and that he may drag other Republicans down with him.

• Seven GOP operatives not directly associated with the President’s reelection campaign told CNN that Trump’s response to the pandemic and the subsequent economic fallout have significantly damaged his bid for a second term — and that the effects are starting to hurt Republicans more broadly. Some of these operatives asked not to be identified in order to speak more candidly.

• Several say that public polls showing Trump trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden mirror what they are finding in their own private polls, and that the trend is bleeding into key Senate races. The GOP already had a difficult task of defending 23 Senate seats in 2020. The job of protecting its slim 3-seat majority has only gotten harder as the pandemic has unfolded. States like Arizona and North Carolina, once thought to be home to winnable Senate races now appear in jeopardy.

• Whereas a few months ago, they were confident of the party’s chances across the board, many of the strategists who spoke to CNN have lowered their expectations, and now talk in terms of minimizing what they worry could be a wipeout for the GOP. This leaves them hoping for a minor rather than devastating defeat, something akin to Mitt Romney’s narrow loss in 2012, when Republicans lost two Senate seats, rather than John McCain’s performance four years earlier, when they lost eight.

• The broader fear among Republicans is that the election becomes a referendum on Trump’s performance during the pandemic. Coupled with a cratered economy, the effect could be devastating by both depressing the Republican faithful and turning off swing voters.

• But that effort has become increasingly difficult against the backdrop of a pandemic that has destroyed many of the economic gains Republicans had hoped to make the foundation of their re-election argument.

• “It’s a very, very tough environment. If you have a college degree and you live in suburbia, you don’t want to vote for us,” said one long-time Republican congressional campaign consultant, who added there is a serious worry about bleeding support from both seniors and self-described independent men.

• The party’s chief concern, some of these Republicans say, should be holding onto its Senate majority. The task requires Senate candidates to make appeals to suburban voters who flipped to Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections as a reaction against Trump.

• But that goal is complicated by how dependent Republican candidates are on maximal turnout for the President, even in states the Trump campaign does not expect to win. GOP Sens. Cory Gardner in Colorado and Susan Collins in Maine cannot afford a depressed Trump base in their states, even as they play up their independent identities to win swing voters.

• There is even a chance, in a bad year for Trump, that GOP-held Senate seats in Georgia and Montana could be in trouble, said Donovan.

Read the full story here.

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