Is Donald Trump hurting his Republican cohorts in Congress?
It’s a question many have pondered aloud in recent weeks. Perhaps most significantly, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly told his colleagues that Republicans in Congress competing in down-ticket election races are prepared to distance themselves from Trump, according to an investigation by the New York Times.
“Mr. McConnell has begun preparing senators for the prospect of a Trump nomination, assuring them that, if it threatened to harm them in the general election, they could run negative ads about Mr. Trump to create space between him and Republican senators seeking re-election,” the Times reported. “Mr. McConnell has raised the possibility of treating Mr. Trump’s loss as a given and describing a Republican Senate to voters as a necessary check on a President Hillary Clinton.”
But to what degree has Trump’s run for the presidency—one more notable for its vitriolic language and violent rallies than intelligent discussion—impacted members of the GOP in Congress?
As it turns out, the outlook doesn’t look good. According to political data and crowdfunding site Crowdpac, those most negatively impacted by Trump’s candidacy are indeed his fellow Republicans. And for moderate Republicans in states like New Hampshire, it’s proving difficult to simultaneously maintain distance from Trump while vying for his supporters’ votes.
Meanwhile, many Democrats have actually moved further left ideologically, which seems to have meshed well with an electorate shuddering at the thought of Trump standing in the Oval Office. The data used for the Crowdpac infographic comes from a recent survey by the Pew Research Center.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the Democrats will re-take the House—doing so would require a 30-seat takeover, which is very unlikely. But it certainly shows that McConnell and his pals have very serious cause for concern.
