GOP Senators Already Greenlighted to Run Anti-Trump General Election Ads
Here is another indication of how bad the November bloodbath will
be for Trump if he is the nominee. Every time there is a bruising GOP primary,
there are always people who emerge with hurt feelings, but the RNC, NRSC, and
NRCC always get the message out quickly that everyone needs to present a united
front in favor of the nominee. In some very rare circumstances, where a very
blue state Senator is running for re-election, an ad carefully distancing the
Senator from a Republican nominee gets greenlit, but those are by far the
exception rather than the rule.
I really more or less expected that to
be true of Trump, in spite of everything. Most elected Republicans are
creatures of the party, after all, and tend to fall in line when ordered to do
so. Apparently, not so much, as McConnell has already given the carte blanche
go ahead to run anti-Trump general
election ads for any candidate who feels the need to do so.
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. 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, according to senators at the lunches.
He has reminded colleagues of
his own 1996 re-election campaign, when he won comfortably amid President Bill
Clinton’s easy re-election. Of Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell has said, “We’ll drop
him like a hot rock,” according to his colleagues.
Trump’s supporters are of the
delusional belief that none of this will matter. Certainly, the lack of support
from a single Senator hasn’t prevented Trump from accumulating about 35% of the
Republican vote. But if he runs in November with even 10 or 15 Senators from
his own party are running ads against him, he is going to have no chance to
accumulate independent votes he needs to win. MORE
