Senate Republicans were already facing a tough re-election cycle, but Donald Trump’s sudden clear path to the Republican nomination now has both conservatives and liberals making doomsday predictions about how Trump’s candidacy will end up handing the Senate to Democrats.
“The Senate’s gone,” Varad Mehta, an historian and writer at the conservative website The Federalist, tweeted Wednesday morning. “It’s all about minimizing the losses now.”
Race analysts have for months calculated a tough November for the Senate GOP. The Cook Political Report, a non-partisan and highly respected election and campaign newsletter, rates a half-dozen GOP-held seats as pure toss-up races, which means they are highly vulnerable to a Democratic takeover.
On the Democratic side, only the seat held by retiring Minority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, is in the toss-up category.
But by late Tuesday, after Trump became the last Republican candidate standing, analysts were suggesting the list of toss-up seats could expand even further if voters link GOP candidates to Trump, who polls show has an average unfavorable rating of more than 65 percent.
Gleeful Democrats Wednesday wasted no time tying vulnerable Republican Senate candidates to the bombastic real estate mogul and his long list of controversial statements about women, Muslims and Mexicans.
The Pennsylvania Democratic Party blasted a morning email that photoshopped Trump’s signature “make America great again” baseball cap onto a photo of Sen. Pat Toomey, one of the most vulnerable Republican senators.
The email listed six questions about the “Trump-Toomey ticket” that touch on various Trump comments, including one Trump has since retracted that calls for punishing women who obtain abortions, and another that he has not retracted proposing a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
The Senate Democratic fundraising arm, under the header “Party of Trump,” declared in an email that Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., is “ready to let Trump name next Supreme Court Justice.”
Ayotte is fewer than 4 points ahead in polls against her Democratic challenger, Gov. Maggie Hassan. She is among a majority of Senate Republicans who oppose a hearing or votes on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick B. Garland.
Democrats, meanwhile, are lapping up the idea that a Trump nomination will give their Senate candidates a shot at taking away more Republican Senate seats.
In Arkansas, Democrat Conner Eldridge has produced an online ad entitled “Harassment” that showcases some of Trump’s statements about women. The ad declares GOP incumbent John Boozman a “Trump enabler.”
Republicans are quick to point to the political vulnerabilities of their own presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, who, like Trump, suffers from a high unfavorable rating, although it’s about 10 points higher than Trump’s rating.
Still, race analysts are reluctant to predict Trump will lead to GOP Senate losses.
“The playing field, as much as the potential weaknesses of the presidential nominee, is a factor,” Ron Faucheux of Clarus Research Group told the Washington Examiner. “Republicans have 24 seats to protect while Democrats only have 10. This imbalance allows Democrats to play offense, while Republicans are forced to play mostly defense.”
Cook Political Report Senior Editor Jennifer Duffy had no immediate plans to expand the list of vulnerable Republican Senate seats after Trump appeared to secure the nomination on Tuesday. Duffy said Trump’s improbable victory is part of what is making her question the conventional wisdom that might lead her to declare more vulnerable GOP Senate seats.
“The thing is that no one really knows,” Duffy said. “I can put more races in play, but since nothing we know about politics has been true, I would be a fool to jump on conventional wisdom today.”
Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of the nonpartisan Rothenberg & Gonzales Political report, said it’s too soon to determine Trump’s impact on Senate races.
“We’re not going to immediately move entire batches of races into the Democratic column now that Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee,” Gonzales said. “But if that’s what the polling data clearly shows in the weeks and months to come, then that’s where the races will go.”
And Republicans, at least officially, are saying Trump won’t hurt Republicans down the ticket.
“Despite the smart presidential pundits’ Twitter meltdowns, Republicans will maintain control of the Senate because we have better-prepared candidates running better, more coherent and more thoughtful campaigns,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Andrea Bozek told the Examiner.
