President Trump has reverted to publicly flogging Republicans in Congress, burdening his ostensible allies with undue political pressure just as they gear up for a daunting midterm campaign.
In a tweetstorm Monday, Trump blamed Democrats but also Republicans for his stalled immigration agenda, suggesting, that it would clear Congress if GOP leaders in the Senate eliminated the filibuster rule requiring a super majority of votes for most legislation. The outburst comes after the president scolded Republicans for the bloated omnibus spending package that he was intimately involved in negotiating.
“Trump doesn’t seem very concerned about losing the midterms,” Alex Conant, a veteran Republican strategist, said Monday in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “Trump’s attacks on Congressional Republicans aren’t strategic. Every time he criticizes Congress without singling out Democrats, he’s hurting a Republican’s chances of getting re-elected.”
Trump openly feuded with Republicans for much of his first year in office, lashing out over failures real and perceived. The infighting receded as the White House and Republicans collaborated on tax reform. Trump embraced Republican incumbents ahead of potentially tough primary campaigns and both sides worked together to promote the historic tax overhaul.
The detente, already fraying, was severed late last month.
Trump, having agreed to the $1.3 trillion omnibus, changed his mind and threatened to veto it. “I say to Congress, I will never sign another bill like this again — I’m not going to do it again. Nobody read it,” he complained on March 23, after working closely with GOP leaders to craft the package.
About a week later, the president took to Twitter to criticize Senate Republicans for preserving the rule necessitating 60 votes to pass most legislation. There’s scant evidence Republicans could muster a simple majority for Trump’s immigration agenda, but that didn’t stop him from signaling otherwise to his loyal legion of grass-roots supporters.
The episode could strengthen Trump’s relationship with his base, boosting his 2020 re-election. But repeated tongue-lashings from the president could depress Republican turnout this November. It’s a major worry for Republicans, who face a yawning enthusiasm gap with energized Democrats.
“We’re already facing a ten-point deficit in the enthusiasm gap,” a Republican pollster said, requesting anonymity in order to speak candidly. “If Trump signals to the base, particularly the blue collar white voters who came out at higher rates for him in ’16, that Republicans in Congress aren’t on ‘team Trump,’ it will make that problem worse.”
The GOP, defending a delicate, 23-seat majority in the House and slender 51-49 advantage in the Senate, is laboring to withstand headwinds that historically buffet the party that holds the White House. Voter dissatisfaction with Trump’s polarizing leadership could whip the political storm into a tsunami.
In the CNN poll conducted March 22-25, Trump’s job approval rating stood at 42 percent, about where it has averaged for the breadth of his administration. On Monday, Rasmussen pegged the president’s approval at 50 percent. According to Gallup, it stood at 39 percent.
In the CNN survey, the Democrats held a surmountable 6 percentage point lead in the generic ballot question that asks voters which party they would prefer be in charge on Capitol Hill. But notably, 51 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they were enthusiastic to vote; just 36 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners said the same.
Republicans are nervous Trump’s periodic admonishing will create enemies among voters who in past years could be counted on to show up and vote for them. Especially given the motivated opposition to their re-election on the Left that has gained new adherents among women, grass-roots conservatives sitting on their hands could prove fatal to GOP incumbents.
“It’s not as though Independents or moderates are going to look at Trump’s criticism and give Republicans the benefit of the doubt,” Republican strategist Doug Heye said.
Trump’s recent combativeness toward Republicans is more muted than it was last summer in the throes of disappointment over the failure of legislation to repeal Obamacare.
His tweetstorm, generally about his apparent decision to drop negotiations to make the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program permanent, did spread the blame around to Democrats and directed no electoral threats toward Republicans. So did his disparagement of the omnibus spending package.
But by not defending Republicans on these items more forcefully, and making his unhappiness solely about the Democrats, Trump might have fed longstanding grass-roots frustrations and tacitly encouraged them not to bother voting in the midterm.
After all, former President Barack Obama isn’t around any more to counter their latent opposition to GOP congressional leaders. It’s an approach that might have long-term benefits for Trump. Short term, however, it could spell doom for his party.
“This message is definitely going to work for Trump in 2020. Trump essentially positions himself on the side of the people, hating everything they hate,” a GOP strategist said. “But he has not truly embraced the implications of being the head of a party. He’s messaging like an independent, when the reality is, the GOP needs him rowing in the same direction as the down ballot candidates.”
