President Trump is slowly shattering the optimism of Republicans aides and operatives who were convinced their party could win enough races in 2018 to create a filibuster-proof Senate majority for the first time since 2011, when 59 seats in the upper chamber were reliably Democratic.
Several Republicans expressed bewilderment Wednesday following the president’s announcement that he had brokered a debt ceiling deal with congressional Democratic leaders, at the expense and humiliation of his own party. Much of their confusion rose to frustration when, hours later, Trump warmly embraced Heidi Heitkamp, one of the most vulnerable Democrats up for re-election in 2018, at an event in a state he won by 36 points last November.
Heitkamp joined Trump aboard Air Force One for a flight to North Dakota on Wednesday, where he delivered prepared remarks on tax reform after praising her as a “good woman” in front of an oil refinery in the state’s booming capital.
“These are great people. They work hard. They’re for you 100 percent,” Trump said of several elected officials, including Heitkamp, whom he had invited to on stage.
“Heitkamp’s campaign is going to start putting ‘She’s a good woman’ on red hats and handing them out in North Dakota,” quipped former Jeb Bush spokesman Tim Miller, who now leads a Republican opposition group that has been closely tracking 2018 races.
A veteran campaign operative himself, Miller told the Washington Examiner that Trump “has done nothing to demonstrate he’ll be a consistent ally to GOP senators” in next year’s midterm elections.
“[He] had a huge opportunity to wedge these Democrat senators in states he won on issues that are popular there,” Miller said, citing tax reform, infrastructure spending, and border security as examples. “But instead he seems more concerned with exacting petty grudges and praising people who flatter him.”
Heitkamp has voted with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of her party’s most progressive figures, 81 percent of the time between 2013 and 2016, according to a CQ voting study. She voted against five of Trump’s cabinet nominees and strongly criticized the president earlier this year for releasing a budget that contained an “irrational” proposal to pay for increased defense spending by “crippling programs that strengthen American families and rural communities.”
Nevertheless, Trump’s warm embrace of Heitkamp gave her a sound-bite she can use to defend herself against the myriad attacks she will inevitably face next summer.
A White House aide dismissed the idea that Trump boosted Heitkamp’s re-election prospects as “beyond insane.”
“He has asked [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell to kill the filibuster. I don’t know how anyone could think the president has some ‘secret desire’ to help Democrats hold onto their seats” in 2018, the aide said.
But Trump has also berated McConnell in public remarks and on social media, while maintaining good relations with at-risk Democrats like Heitkamp and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.
One GOP operative, who described Trump as “unpredictable,” said the president may not fully understand the damage he could do to Republicans in 2018 if he continues to save his sharpest attacks for lawmakers belonging to his own party.
“These red-state Democrats should face harsh criticism for obstructing the agenda that their voters overwhelmingly supported last election,” the operative said, adding that Heitkamp, Manchin, and other vulnerable incumbents like Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill “were embraced by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and have long liberal voting records.”
“President Trump needs a strong Republican Senate that will support his conservative nominees and agenda, and these Democrats aren’t intend on doing that,” said the GOP operative.
Trump spent part of Thursday meeting with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney, top White House aides, and more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers from New York and New Jersey. Only four congressional Republicans were included in the discussion, which focused on infrastructure improvements in the Tri-state area and featured input from New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Sens. Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand.
“He wants to work with Republicans and Democrats to move this country forward,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Politico this week.
However, Trump’s desire to facilitate a bipartisanship tax reform bill and a legislative solution for Dreamers has brought more positive attention to his opponents recently than to the party that helped elect him. And Democrats and the media are beginning to take note.
“Mr. Trump may not like GOP leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, but is he trying to elect Speaker Pelosi?” the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote Thursday.
At least one Democratic senator who may struggle to hold onto his seat in 2018 seemed eager to replicate Heitkamp’s experience with the president.
“He’s always invited to West Virginia,” Manchin told Politico, viewing an appearance with Trump at a policy-focused event as a positive opportunity, and one that might also help him fare better next fall.
Manchin spokesman Jonathan Kott later told the Washington Examiner the West Virginia Democrat “certainly would” appear alongside the president if Trump were to extend an invite.
