Panicked Republicans scrambled Monday to preserve their majorities in Congress as they assessed the fallout from Donald Trump’s faltering presidential campaign.
The GOP nominee delivered a solid performance in Sunday evening’s second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton that could salve some of the bleeding and assuage concerned Republicans.
But party strategists are privately conceding the loss of at least three Senate seats this fall, with more than enough in jeopardy because of Trump to flip the chamber to the Democrats. The Democrats need to net five seats to win the majority, four if Clinton becomes president.
That gloomy forecast comes in the wake of Trump’s disastrous first debate on Sept. 26, as well as the days that followed, culminating in the Friday leak of an explosive video that features the businessman speaking lewdly about his exploits with women.
The 30-seat House majority, long presumed safe for the Republicans, also is experiencing Trump turbulence.
Clinton led Trump by double digits in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken over the weekend, after the release of the sex-talk video but before the second debate. Democrats led Republicans by a strong 49 percent to 42 percent on the generic congressional ballot test.
Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told GOP members during a conference call on Monday that those troubling trends were confirmed by the party’s internal numbers.
“The fear factor is high, but I don’t think anyone really knows yet what the new normal is,” said a Republican operative with relationships on Capitol Hill.
The Republicans’ biggest fears are about the reverberations from what is now referred to as the “Trump tape.”
In the 11-year-old video, first reported by the Washington Post, the celebrity businessman brags to television personality Billy Bush that being a TV star make it acceptable to force himself sexually on women. Trump also brags about his attempt to woo a married woman.
Trump apologized, but downplayed his boasts as “locker room talk.” But it’s not just the tape that has Republicans frustrated and worried.
Congressional Republicans are upset with Trump for blowing the first debate, and worse, his insistence on fighting with former Miss Universe contestant Alicia Machado for days after his behavior toward her was raised by Clinton during their first faceoff.
That, plus rumors of more damaging opposition research yet to drop, have many Republicans at their breaking point with a nominee that has periodically forced them to answer for his controversies since he crowned five months ago.
Congressional Republicans being fed up with Trump, as much as political calculation, is what led several to pull their endorsements from him over the weekend.
“What people fail to understand is that any person who un-endorsed Trump in any way, shape or form this weekend lost thousands and thousands of votes, so not a political decision,” said a Republican strategist managing a congressional campaign in a battleground state.
Rep. Joe Heck, running for retiring Sen. Harry Reid’s open seat in Nevada and the GOP’s only legitimate pickup opportunity, is a good example of the challenge Republicans have to navigate.
Heck has generally been running ahead in his race, but now must contend with GOP Trump supporters who are threatening to withhold their support from him because he un-endorsed Trump over the sex-talk tape.
“I just think he made a colossal mistake in a razor-tight race,” local conservative talk radio host Kevin Wall said on his show. “And, we’ve already had Republicans who have called the show and said, ‘I was gonna vote for Joe Heck, I’m gonna vote for Catherine Cortez Masto.'”
Republican insiders are taking the threats very seriously.
In the Senate, Republican insiders are rating GOP-held seats in Illinois, New Hampshire and Wisconsin as the most likely to go Democrat.
Republican-held seats in Missouri and North Carolina are next in line in terms of level of concern, although the former has less to do with Trump and more to do with the incumbent candidate. “Trump was on track to win NC three weeks ago,” a Republican consultant said. “I doubt he is right now.”
Indiana, where Republican Rep. Todd Young is trying to fight off former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, is another bellwether of sorts.
Young has fought from behind to catch Bayh, who was popular before he retired in 2010. Republicans expect to win that seat, possibly with a boost from Gov. Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate. But if they don’t, GOP insiders believe it will be indicative of a depressing Election Day across the board.
A better example of the damage Trump is inflicting on his party currently can found in Arizona, a state that has only voted Democrat for president twice since 1948 — that year and in 1996, for President Bill Clinton.
A Republican operative based in Arizona told the Washington Examiner that Hillary Clinton now has a real chance of winning the state, and that her coattails could help Democrats gain control of the state Senate. Sen. John McCain, running for a sixth term, is not viewed as endangered.
“We are preparing for a dip in GOP turnout of 3 to 5 percent, which [messes] up a lot of down ballot folks,” the Arizona strategist said. Trump has campaigned in the state several times; Clinton has yet to visit.
House Republicans aren’t necessarily worried about losing their majority.
But they are concerned that Trump could be a drag on the ticket and cost them more seats than they otherwise would have, taking their 30-seat, governing majority down to razor-thin, single-digits margin.
Speaker Paul Ryan told his members on the House GOP call that he would focus all of his efforts through Nov. 8 on electing House and Senate Republicans, and would not appear with Trump. The two had been scheduled to campaign together in Wisconsin on Saturday, but Trump was disinvited after news of the sex-talk tape surfaced.
Ryan also told his members that they had his blessing to associate with, or disassociate from, Trump as they see fit for their re-election bids. Some House Republicans voiced opposition to Ryan’s approach; most supported the move.
“He’s handling it well,” said one House Republican, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly. “He can’t withdraw his endorsement or he’ll split our caucus and split the party. But he has to be vocal to give cover to our vulnerables.”
Trump interpreted Ryan’s maneuver as a slap in the face. After news broke of the speaker’s message to his members, Trump attacked him on Twitter, criticizing the Wisconsin Republican for not spending more time on balancing the budget.
Their friction highlighted what is now threatening to become an all-out intra-party civil war, with Trump and his voting base on one side, and many establishment-minded Republicans on the other.
Yet Trump also is splitting the party’s establishment. In a separate conference call Monday, Republican National Committee Reince Priebus assured his members that the RNC was sticking by Trump.
The RNC is running get-out-the-vote operations for Trump; abandoning him would have been a death knell.
“I want to make it very clear that the RNC is in full coordination with the Trump campaign and we have a great relationship with them,” Priebus said, according to an NBC News report. “Nothing has changed in regards to our relationship and we remain very much involved and together in all levels in making these decisions of how best to run the operation across the country.”
