Donald Trump’s victory in the Republican presidential primaries could give Senate Republicans a boost this year, Texas lawmaker John Cornyn suggested Friday.
“I think about the people who will turn out, and I think what we’ve seen in these primaries is a lot of energy, a lot of participation by people who are not traditional Republican primary voters,” the Senate majority whip said during a local radio interview, according to Roll Call. “If that translates into huge turnouts in November, this could … bode very well for us.”
Cornyn’s comments echo House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s optimism that high primary turnout suggests Republicans are “more excited about changing the direction of this country,” which aligns with Trump’s call for the party to unify behind his candidacy.
Despite that optimism, polls consistently show Trump would lose to Clinton, and she’s beaten him in 43 of the past 49 general election matchup polls. Some Republicans worry Trump might also help turn out the Democratic vote.
Preliminary data in battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio suggests that Trump is attracting tens of thousands of Democratic voters to the Republican party, but he’s also driving at least some Republicans to the other side. “Nearly 46,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have gone Republican since the start of 2016, twice as many as have shifted the other way,” PennLive reported last week.
If Cornyn hopes to remain in the Senate majority, Republicans will have to defend seats in six states that President Obama carried in both 2008 and 2012 — a tall order in any year, made more difficult if the 56 percent of voters who have a “strongly unfavorable” view of Trump vote against Republican Senate candidates in the fall.
GOP operatives who fear Trump could cost Republicans the Senate majority take comfort in the fact that Hillary Clinton is also unpopular.
“They’re running the candidate that helps their down-ballot people the least,” one Republican strategist who is working on a competitive Senate race told the Washington Examiner. “It may be that neither Trump nor Hillary helps anybody or hurts anybody, that they run their own race and we run on what is the national climate, de facto. But maybe they’re just both so defined that they just are who they are. I don’t know that she helps anybody at all. It remains to be seen how much she hurts them.”
Cornyn seemed to sympathize with that view. “Hillary’s such a flawed candidate. I mean, if it were you or me … we’d already be doing a perp walk outside of some courthouse somewhere,” he said, referring to the email scandal that has provoked an FBI investigation. “I just hope we don’t blow it.”
