Facing a climate ‘worse than 2018,’ GOP hopes Trump’s final debate can help save the Senate
Republicans aren’t sure if President Donald Trump — trailing in the polls and struggling to deliver a focused closing message — can stage a comeback to win re-election.
But they see his final debate with Joe Biden as potentially the last, best chance to save an already endangered GOP Senate majority.
Confronting a bleak political environment that’s drawing comparisons to the Democratic wave election of 2018, Republican operatives say they are hoping for a crisp, policy-filled contrast from the president Thursday that could lift not only his own dwindling prospects, but help salvage vulnerable senators in North Carolina, Iowa and Georgia.
Given the history of the last four years and the bellicose tenor of his recent rallies and first debate performance, however, few are holding their breath.
“Every time he goes off script — attacking Dr. Fauci — that’s the headline and everything else gets lost,” said Brian Walsh, a veteran Republican operative with experience in Senate campaigns. “Every day the race is about something the president says, that’s a lost day.”
In private, Republicans offer a bearish assessment of the current political climate, which they say has been defined by the president’s low approval ratings and shown only marginal signs of improvement in recent weeks.
One Senate Republican operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly, compared Trump to the comic book character Thanos, a super-villain who in one story wiped away half of sentient life in the universe.
In this case, the operative said, the president’s dismal polling numbers were eliminating the party’s Senate majority instead.
“It’s worse than 2018,” the strategist said, referring to the year Democrats won a net of 41 House seats on their way to taking control of the lower chamber.
Many Republicans privately concede that they’re expecting to lose the seats held by Sen. Martha McSally in Arizona and Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado, but are confident they’ll pick up the Alabama seat occupied by Democratic Sen. Doug Jones.
Under that projected scenario, Democrats would need to add just two more seats to achieve a majority. GOP Sen. Susan Collins in Maine has trailed Democratic challenger Sara Gideon in both private and public polling, but some Republicans are holding onto hope that the relationships she has cultivated over four terms in a small state could lead to a narrow victory.
Despite personal scandal, Democrat Cal Cunningham still clings to a slim lead over first-term Republican Sen. Thom Tillis in North Carolina, where Biden has maintained an equally meager advantage that could pull Cunningham over the finish line.
But even if Republicans were to surprise in one of those four marquee contests, they’re still on the ropes in a handful of traditionally red states that weren’t seen as highly competitive just a few months ago. Races in South Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, Alaska and two in Georgia are all in play, more than doubling the size of the expected competitive Senate map since the outset of the year.
“The environment for Democrats is very favorable, probably more favorable than 2018 even was,” said Meredith Kelly, a Democratic strategist. “Otherwise we would not be talking about flipping the Senate through places like North Carolina or Maine or having Colorado already being in the bag. We wouldn’t be talking about if that weren’t the case.”
Kansas, which hasn’t been represented by a Democrat in the Senate in 81 years, was recently described by a Republican Senate aide as the “most concerning” race due to the spending disparity between candidates.
In Georgia, some Democrats believe Jon Ossoff is an even bet to hit 50% in his challenge to first-term GOP Sen. David Perdue, which would allow the party to avoid a January runoff scenario that historically favors Republicans. Georgia’s other Senate race, featuring Republicans Kelly Loeffler and Doug Collins and Democrat Raphael Warnock, is widely expected to advance to a runoff.
And in Montana, Democrats say internal polls indicate Trump is on track to win the state by only seven to nine points, a far cry from the 20-point margin of 2016 and one that gives Democratic candidate Steve Bullock at least an outside chance to unseat GOP Sen. Steve Daines.
Even deep red Mississippi — where Trump won by 18 points in 2016 — has caught the attention of some Democrats as Mike Espy runs against GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. According to data provided by Advertising Analytics, Espy spent $2 million on TV ads in a recent two-week stretch this month, more than five times the $350,000 spent by Hyde-Smith over the same period.
“It would need to be a really good night for us,” one Senate Democratic strategist said of the Mississippi race. “But if it’s a really good night for us, he could close it at the end.”
With all these races in play, Democrats are now expecting that they could exceed the four seats necessary for the majority. “Four is a good night,” said a Democratic aide working on Senate races. “Six is better than anticipated. Eight is an insane night.”
In the House, where Democrats hold an 18-seat majority, the party is almost guaranteed to maintain control and is now eyeing a host of longtime Republican seats in places like suburban Missouri, Ohio and Arizona that could flip in a wave year.
The conservative Club for Growth has tracked improving numbers for the president in recent days in their 18 targeted districts. Though Trump’s numbers remain below his 2016 peak, it’s an indication that reluctant Republicans are looking for a reason to come home, if they’re not driven away by a presidential distraction.
Trump’s first debate performance was viewed as a brute attempt to steamroll Biden, who often was left shaking his head and unable to respond through the barrage. But that approach did nothing to close the president’s polling deficit, which currently sits at 10 points nationally.
How he chooses to conduct his final 90-minute face-off with Biden in Nashville will drive the closing arguments in the 2020 race where already more than 40 million have voted.
“If Trump forces it to be a selection on that vision for how America recovers from COVID ... I think his platforms beat Biden’s platforms,” said Club for Growth president David McIntosh. “If it ends up continuing to be a personality contest, do we like or dislike the way Donald Trump handled the presidency? That’s Biden’s advantage.”
This week alone, Trump used his campaign appearances to attack the nation’s most popular physician, Anthony Fauci, and one of the highest rated TV news programs, 60 Minutes, which taped an interview with him set to air on Sunday.
And Trump’s campaign has already telegraphed that in the debate the president would focus on Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China, whether the moderator raises it or not.
“If the president is angry or interrupts, that doesn’t affect anything. If he says something so offensive … it’s going to affect undecided voters and hurt on the Senate side,” said Jason Altmire, a former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania who survived a Republican wave year in 2010. “Everybody sees that this has potential to be a significant landslide.”
One GOP consultant with deep ties to the conservative movement predicted Democrats were on the path to a “really big victory unless there’s a game-changing moment,” in the debate that illuminated Biden as a vehicle to a radical restructuring of government, from an expansion of the Supreme Court to adding U.S. senators from Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.
“You can’t run 2016’s race in 2020 and that’s what he’s trying to do. It’s not going to work. Biden is not a great candidate by any stretch but he’s not disliked like Hillary Clinton was,” said the consultant, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “I’m not sure it’s going to be close.”
This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
