Democrats are poised to flip control of the House but fall short in an uphill battle for the Senate, one week before critical midterm elections gripped by a fear and loathing that have predominated American politics under President Trump.
The Democrats were riding a wave of resources and enthusiasm that threatened to overwhelm Republican defenses in House battlegrounds, as traditionally conservative, upscale suburbs rejected Trump’s culture war and teetered on the precipice. In the Senate, the Republicans’ partisan firewall was holding, with red states sympathetic to the president’s fiery anti-establishment populism prepared to boot centrist Democrats and pad the GOP’s slim majority.
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The voters’ pending split decision on Trump’s first two years has unfolded in recent weeks amid a series of crises, real and imagined.
The country has been whipsawed by a Supreme Court confirmation rocked by uncorroborated allegations of sexual misconduct; angry liberals accosting prominent Republicans in restaurants; Trump-stoked fears of an invasion of asylum-seeking Hispanic migrants headed toward the Southern border; a Trump supporter who targeted prominent Democrats and so-called critical media organizations with pipe bombs; and an anti-Semitic shooting massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
“People have been asking me if I’m okay, if I’m worried,” Rep. Jacky Rosen, the Democrat challenging Republican Sen. Dean Heller in Nevada, told the Washington Examiner in Carson City, when asked to describe how voters were reacting. “People have just told me to be careful and watch out — and [that] they have my back.”
Heller has felt the impact of the caustic political environment, too. Over the weekend, Heller and his wife, Lynne, rode on horseback in the annual Nevada Day Parade. It’s an annual event for the political couple, but the first time they did so with a security detail. “Just because everything’s so crazy,” Heller said. “Never had that happen before.”
House Republicans are laboring to hang onto their 23-seat majority, outgunned and outmanned by Democratic challengers that have the edge in money and manpower; and a constellation of flush liberal groups that are outspending and out-hustling the few conservative outside groups doing their best to hold the line.
In 115 House races, Democratic challengers outraised their Republican opponents in the third quarter. In more than half of those, the Democrat raised $1 million or more during the three-month period ending Sept. 30; more than two-dozen Democrats raised at least $2 million. A Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that has outraised the National Republican Congressional Committee by $76.3 million for the 2018 cycle is bolstering that advantage.
On top of all of that, there is a tsunami of liberal cash being invested down the stretch of the midterm campaign, led by billionaire Democrat Michael Bloomberg, who was a registered Republican when he served as the mayor of New York during George W. Bush’s administration.
Just last week, Bloomberg funneled $4.4 million into Orange County, Calif., to oust Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a top Democratic target; and directed nearly $1 million against Rep. Rob Woodall, R-Ga., in suburban Atlanta — a longer shot but part of the Democrats’ expanding map of late-breaking opportunities. On Monday, the NRCC bought advertising in Charleston, S.C., to defend a district that should have been a lock.
“The biggest dynamic driving the battle for the House right now is the sheer financial advantage the Democrats — candidates and outside groups — have to take advantage of an environment that is unquestionably in their favor,” Rob Simms, a Republican strategist with House clients and a former NRCC executive director, said in an interview.
Republicans are fairing better in the Senate and looking to add to their 51-49 majority.
A favorable map of contested seats in pro-Trump states is buffering the party from political headwinds, with a previously complacent GOP base nearly matching Democratic enthusiasm after being awakened by the explosive hearings to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whose nomination was roiled by uncorroborated allegations of sexual misconduct from decades ago.
Other than in Nevada, where Rosen could defeat Heller, and in Arizona, where Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema and GOP Rep. Martha McSally are jousting for an open seat, Republicans are on the march against talented, well-funded Democratic incumbents and challengers. In a half-dozen of these red states, the Republicans are positioned to win or come extremely close.
Trump is scheduled to rally the faithful in these and other battlegrounds — Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia among them — in a bid to maximize his political strength and help his party seal the deal in the Senate.
If Trump and Senate Republicans pull it off, Sen. Chuck Grassley suggested that Kavanaugh deserves some credit, So to, anxiety about the migrant caravan, nurtured assiduously by Trump with warnings delivered in dark overtones. On Monday, the administration announced it was deploying more than 5,000 troops to the Mexican border to block migrant crossings.
“It did away with the lethargy of the Republican base. We’ve got enthusiasm as high as what the Democrats have now nationally,” Grassley said of the partisan Supreme Court confirmation process. “The caravan may be the second boost, but the Kavanaugh thing is the instigator of any boost we had.”
Candidates in both parties are doing their best to minimize the president’s impact on the race, insisting that he is a bit player in a midterm election drama about larger issues. Democrats, especially, are laser-focused on healthcare; Republicans are talking up economic growth and low unemployment. But in individual House races, at least, there is little doubt that the commander in chief is the driving factor.
Prospects for a Democratic House takeover have improved over the past week after dipping in the immediate aftermath of the Kavanaugh episode. That rise in Democratic fortunes has coincided with Trump resuming his morning tweeting habit, referring to the media as the “enemy of the people” and describing some Democrats as “evil.”
It’s this provocative behavior, a feature of the Trump’s political persona, that is driving Republicans into a ditch in affluent, educated suburbs that traditionally vote GOP for Congress, despite sometimes supporting Democrats in presidential contests. There are 23 districts that backed Democrat Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016, and they are primed to provide the foundation for a Democratic House sweep on Nov. 6.
How toxic is Trump in seats like these? In suburban Chicago, embattled Republican Rep. Peter Roskam said he expects to survive because his Democratic challenger, businessman Sean Casten, behaves just like Trump — exactly what his constituents don’t want in a political leader.
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“My opponent will say he doesn’t like Donald Trump, and yet he’s embracing the very things that people don’t like about Donald Trump. That is one of the reasons we’re going to win,” Roskam said in an interview.
For Democrats who are hoping to pull an upset in rural and exurban districts where Trump is at least reasonably well-thought of, criticizing the president can be tricky.
So they are tip-toeing around direct criticism of the president, instead discussing the need to send more people of “character” to Congress. It’s a coded rebuke, but fully understood by voters who are supporting Democrats to satisfy their desire to rebuke Trump.
“It’s time to elect leaders who are not going to divide us and who are going to try in good faith to work through some of the issues that we have in our country,” said Democrat Amy McGrath, hoping to unseat Republican Rep. Andy Barr in a Kentucky district that is predisposed to approve of Trump.
Al Weaver contributed to this report from Iowa and Nevada. Laura Barron-Lopez contributed from Kentucky.
