COULD DEMS WIN BIG IN 2018?

 

Could this happen in the 2018 midterms?

 

The president’s job approval, normally a harbinger of his party’s midterm performance, is at a record low.

 

Trump’s comment in the immigration discussions about “S---hole African countries” has had even deeper affects within the GOP.  Since that comment was made, two more prominent Republican House members announced plans to retire from their vulnerable seats in 2018.

This is in addition to the raft of retirements that have occurred with other Republicans in Congress.

 

By the end of the week, many Republicans were distancing themselves from the president after he spoke the “s---hole countries” comment during his Oval Office meeting with other lawmakers.  Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), a rising star in the GOP who faces a strong Democratic challenge, she quickly denounced Trump for denigrating Haiti, the birthplace of both her parents.  “The president must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned,” Love demanded.  Some Republicans in competitive races have already stated that they will try to separate themselves from Trump as a survival strategy.

 

The concern about the 2018 midterms and the Republican retirements has grown so much that Trump received from one congressional aide, a “sobering” slide presentation about the difficult midterm landscape. (So far, 31 GOP seats will be open in the mid-terms, and the Dems only need to win 24 seats.  More GOP retirements are anticipated.) This led the president to pledge himself to a robust schedule of fundraising and campaign travel in the coming months, according to White House officials.

 

As President Trump denied calling Haiti and African countries 's---hole countries,' Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) confirmed and condemned his language. 

 

It was in the slide presentation that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) described to the president a potential bloodbath where Republicans lost the House “and lost it big,” and in the words of one official, an outcome in which they might keep control while still losing some seats.

 

Other indicators are clearly flashing GOP warning signs. Democrats have benefited from significant recruitment advantages as there are at least a half dozen former Army Rangers and Navy SEALs running as Democrats this year, and this is occurring as Republicans are struggling to convince their incumbents to run for re-election.

 

At least those 31 House seats held by Republicans will be open in November following announced retirements, a greater number for the majority party than in each of the past three midterm elections when control of Congress flipped.

 

The president’s own job approval, a traditional prognosis of his party’s midterm performance, is at record lows as he approaches one year in office.  According to the Gallup Polls asking which party Americans wants to see control the US Congress in 2019, the poll shows a double-digit advantage for Democrats.

 

“When the change wave comes, it’s always underestimated in the polls,” said a conservative political strategist who has met with GOP candidates. “That is the reason that Republicans are ducking for cover.”

 

Amid the onslaught, Republican strategists say they continue to pin their party’s electoral hopes on the nation’s still-rising economic indicators, the potential effects of the recent tax-reform bill and Trump’s ability to rally the conservative base.

 

That slight amount of optimism extends to the top Republican leaders who are hopeful that Trump’s disruptive effect on the political landscape can once again surprise the nation this fall.

 

“Who knows what 2018 will be like? Nobody called 2016, right?” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the second-ranking Republican in that chamber. “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was going to get elected and that Chuck Schumer was going to be the majority leader. And none of that turned out to be true.”

 

“The monthly metrics are bad, from the generic ballot to the Republican retirements to the number of Democratic recruits with money,” said one Republican political consultant who asked for anonymity to speak frankly. “The big question is: Is everything different with Trump? Because the major metrics point to us losing at least one house of Congress.”

 

In a private conversations, Trump has told his advisers that he doesn’t think the 2018 election has to be as bad as others are predicting. He referenced the 2002 midterms, when George W. Bush and Republicans fared better after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the advisers said.  But Trump’s ability to shape the midterm field has repeatedly been frustrated.

 

Trump worked hard to recruit two 2018 Senate candidates, Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and incumbent Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), both of whom announced in recent weeks that they would not run.

 

Those decisions strengthened the hopes of Heitkamp, who is running for reelection in a state that Trump won by 36 points in 2016, and provided an opportunity in Utah for a Trump antagonist, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, to launch a Senate bid of his own.

 

Republican leaders feel better about Trump’s ability to help Missouri candidate Josh Hawley, the state attorney general, who greeted the president on a recent visit. The White House is also pushing Florida Gov. Rick Scott to run against Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), although associates of Scott are of mixed opinions on the likelihood that he will do it. In a move White House aides described as unrelated, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recently granted Florida an exemption from the president’s new plan to open the nation’s coastlines to offshore drilling.

 

White House officials said they expect to be fully involved into a special House race in Pennsylvania, with trips from Trump, Vice President Pence and Cabinet members. The race has taken on a larger-than-life role in the White House because officials want to stem the tide of the losses they suffered last year in Virginia and Alabama.

 

Hopes of recruiting other top-tier candidates have been frustrated. In Tennessee, Democrats recruited former governor Phil Bredesen to run for the Senate seat left open by the retirement of Sen. Bob Corker (R). But Republican efforts to recruit the current governor, Bill Haslam, fell short.

 

Maintaining a supportive message for Republican candidates can be a challenge, as the president showed this week when his vulgar comments about developing African countries sparked international outrage.

 

Dave Hansen, a political adviser to Rep. Mia Love, the Utah congresswoman, said such conflicts are unavoidable during the Trump presidency.

 

“It’s certainly not like running with Ronald Reagan, that’s for sure,” Hansen said. “What a candidate has to do in a situation like this is, you can’t be all in for the guy. Basically, you support him when you think he’s right and oppose him when you think he’s wrong.”

 

And boy was the president wrong this time.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2018