Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, thinks Donald Trump could hand control of the upper chamber back to Democrats in 2016.
“We can’t have a nominee be an albatross around the down-ballot races,” the second-ranked Senate Republican told CNN Monday. “I think [Trump] certainly is a controversial figure. I think we need someone who can unify the party, as opposed to divide the party.”
Cornyn’s comments are a milder expression of the electoral disaster that Senate Republicans fear would ensue from a Trump nomination, especially with the lawmakers swept into office during the Tea Party wave election of 2010 now defending their seats in Democratic-leaning territory during a presidential season.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is urging GOP candidates to prepare to distance themselves from Trump in the general election. “We’ll drop him like a hot rock,” he said in a private conference meeting, according to a New York Times report.
Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans facing reelection this year, described Trump’s rise as “depressing” after the real estate mogul refused to condemn the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke on CNN.
“I go to bed every night praying that our nominee is a person of integrity, intelligence, ideas, and courage,” Johnson told a local radio show host. “I don’t like demagoguery on any side of the political spectrum and we have it across the political spectrum.”
