Conceding that they WILL lose their majority in the US House?
Republicans, with Trump in the lead, will try to sell the media and their base that their losses the House where NOT their fault and that Trump was responsible for keeping their majority in the Senate….
If for some reason they lose their majority in the Senate?
Hmmmm?
President Donald Trump and his allies have crafted a face-saving plan if Democrats trounce their way to a House majority — tout Trump as the savior of Republicans in the Senate.
In public and private, Trump and advisers are pointing to the president’s surge of campaigning on behalf of Republican Senate candidates — 19 rallies alone since Labor Day — as evidence that nobody else could have had a bigger impact in the states. The argument is classic Trump, who despite making the midterms a referendum on his own presidency, has a history of personalizing and then dwelling on his victories while distancing himself and diverting attention from his losses.
Should Republicans pick up Senate seats, “that’s all they’ll talk about,” said Barry Bennett, a presidential adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign. “That’s where the math is in our favor.”
Even in the House, where Republicans are laboring to sustain their 23-seat majority, the White House is already dismissing any notion of a Democratic wave election on par with the Republican midterm pickups under former presidents Barack Obama or Bill Clinton….
That’s a wee bit like Donald Trump taking credit for the sunrise every morning.
Long before any of the races had even begun to form (let alone change, as some of them did), it was clear how difficult it would be for the Democrats to gain a majority in the Senate, since only eight (later nine *) Republican seats were up for re-election, and only one of those (Nevada) in a state won by Hillary Clinton in 2008, as opposed to nearly two-dozen Democratic seats. The rest were in the deep, dark red, apparently-unlosable, states of Arizona, Texas, Mississippi *, Tennessee, Nebraska, Wyoming & Utah.
But the Democrats — often first elected in the Democratic Senate years of 2000 (several replacing weak Republicans who came in with the Gingrich Revolution of 1994), 2006 or 2012 — had no fewer than ten seats of their own to hold in states won by Donald Trump (Mont, ND, Wis, Mich, Ind, Ohio, Pa, Mo, WV & Fla).
The Republicans did get a nasty scare from the enthusiasm gap just before the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings (only, believe it or not, a month ago), but Donald Trump’s campaigning won’t be the principal reason if the GOP holds the Senate.
* A second GOP Senate seat in Mississippi came up for election in 2018 when Sen. Jeff Sessions resigned to become Atty-Gen of the U.S., and Cindy Hyde-Smith was appointed in his place.)
Trump WILL take credit for ANYTHING he can name….
Yes…
Democrats ARE at a disadvantage because of the number to seats they defend…
But take heart…
In 2020?
The table will be turned….
20 GOP seats are up for grabs and just 11 Democratic ones…2 other seats will be effected by Tuesday’s vote…
Correction, only one Republican Senator (Dean Heller) faces re-election this year in a state won by Hillary Clinton in 2016, not, as I wrote above, 2008.