Republican senators are defending a lot of turf in the 2020 election. You would never know it from watching this year’s Republican National Convention.
On Wednesday night, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) was the lone Republican official in a heated Senate race to address the GOP convention with a prime ministerial address. Six other senators who are in the fray of their political lives this year were not scheduled to speak: Cory Gardner (CO), Martha McSally (AZ), Steve Daines (MT), Thom Tillis (NC), and David Perdue (GA). And instead of from Maine Sen. Hearing Susan Collins at the convention, viewers got a lobster man from that state, Jason Joyce.
During an election year that has seen Republican primary elections, it’s largely about loyalty to President Donald Trump, sitting senators who spoke at the RNC were largely those who embraced Trump’s vision. Viewers heard Wednesday from Conservative Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas is scheduled to speak Thursday. A notable speaker was South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the only Black member of the Senate GOP and lead author of her bill on criminal law reform. Michigan Republican John James, a frequent Fox News contributor challenging Democratic senator Gary Peters, also addressed the convention Monday night with a pre-recorded speech.
The lack of senators in swing states at the RNC stage was due in part to an almost planned virtual convention, sources told Vox.
“It has not been the most seamless process in the world,” a Republican employee told Vox. “Everything seems to be coming together recently.”
But it also has to do with who these vulnerable senators are trying to appeal to. Party conventions typically serve as a way to boost the base, but many of these officials also need the support of swing and independent voters to retain their seats. Some run in states where Trump’s approval rating is under water. In doing so, the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) gives senators room to strike a more independent stance and distance themselves from Trump if they deem it necessary.
“I do not think Senate Republican candidates are trying to distance themselves from Trump as a whole, they are choosing more specific issues to show their independence from the president,” said Tim Cameron, a Republican strategist and former chief digital strategist at the NRSC. , told Vox. “There’s just more to lose from the president’s wholesale trade.”
Seeing it through this lens, the lack of the most vulnerable GOP officials is perhaps not so surprising. It is also worth noting that a few Democratic Senate challengers spoke at last week’s Democratic National Convention. Alabama Senator Doug Jones, who is easily the most endangered Democrat, gave a speech about his involvement in the fight for civil rights in that state.
“Participation by both incumbent candidates and challenger Senate candidates in key battlefield states is the exception rather than the rule,” Cameron said.
The lack of GOP senators at the Republican convention, briefly explained
Party conventions are largely about gathering the candidate for president and the party’s ideas for the next four years.
The RNC has been debating the case of Trump, a deeply controversial president, for another four years.
Trump has made a vague sign on the GOP, causing him to re-create the party in his own image. The name of the president’s official was embellished over the speaker’s lecture, and the convention included Trump performing a presidential apology and a naturalization ceremony in the White House. The Republican Party has released its problem platform this year, instead of the set of ideas coming out of the White House.
Speaking to journalists Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman of Politico on Wednesday morning, NRSC Director Kevin McLaughlin said, “I do not think we should read too much into” the absence of swing senators.
“Every senator participates, to my knowledge, on one level or another; it was just another type of convention, ‘McLaughlin told Politico. ‘I think all our people are committed to working on a uniform ticket – there is no question about that. We have worked with the Trump campaign and vice versa. ”
On Wednesday night, Ernst made her remarks not in Washington, DC, but through a pre-recorded speech in her home state of Iowa. Ernst spent a lot of time praising Trump, but her speech was tailored to her state, referring to a constituency that was largely made up of farmers (Trump won Iowa by about 9 points in 2016).
To decide whether it makes sense for candidates to appear at the national convention, campaigns need to consider factors such as how Trump performs in that candidate’s home state, according to Cameron.
“There are some places where I think it makes more sense than others,” Cameron said. “Sen. Ernst is in a state where Trump comes out on top with 3 to 5 points in it [recent] polls. ”
Even Trump’s approval in the state has disappeared; he has a non-approval rating of -5, according to Morning Consult. It is a dramatic dip of 14 points in the president’s approval ratings since he took office.
Trump’s disapproval is at a similar point in Maine, where Senator Susan Collins is involved in one of her toughest battles for re-election. Competing against Democratic Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, Collins Trump has not signed for president and has no comment on whether she plans to vote for him in the fall – despite support from Republican presidential candidates in previous election cycles.
“Donald Trump is really unpopular in the southern part of the state, and for many of those voters – especially the younger voters – they do not put much weight into their age, their weight in credits, their history as a moderate “They are part of the Trump / McConnell team,” said Colby College professor of political science and pollster Dan Shea. That’s why she’s in a tough race. ”
Collins is trying to strike her own path to re-election without Trump’s involvement, so it’s not so surprising to see her without a primetime slot at the RNC.
Still, it is unclear how many GOP senators themselves were asked to speak at this year’s convention. A spokesman for the Trump campaign declined to comment when Vox asked which senators were invited.
There’s a real fight this year for the majority of the Senate
Even though the presidential contest between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden is in the forefront of people’s minds this fall, there is an equally important battle for control of the Senate taking place across the country.
A few months ago, Democrats were expected to have only a narrow path to take back the finest majority. After the last piece, her battlefield map has expanded dramatically. The nonpartisan Cook’s political report currently considers six seats held by Republicans as “toss-ups” – Colorado, Maine, Montana, Iowa, Georgia, and North Carolina. Cook rates another Republic, Arizona, as “Lean Democrat.”
That expansion has been driven by a number of factors, including the coronavirus crisis and a slow economy. More than 20 million Americans still receive some form of government unemployment benefit, according to a CNN analysis.
Republican pollster Neil Newhouse recently described the pandemic as leading to “an extraordinary flip of the mood in the country in a short time.” And polls in June and July found 75 percent to 80 percent of voters thought they were heading in the wrong direction.
“That affects change,” Newhouse told Vox. “Of [voters] Hold Trump or Republicans in the House as Senate accountable or not, they will still vote for change. ”
Trump has always been a controversial president; the Republican base is loyal to him, but the midterms of 2018 and polling in 2020 show that independent and swinging voters may be defective to the Democrats. And as much as Republicans have tried to portray the Democratic Party as a radical band of socialists, Biden is a moderate presidential candidate, and many of the Democrats who are candidates for Senate are also solid moderates.
Democrats hope this formula can help them turn the Senate around and win back the White House, but it will be difficult. Both Democrats and Republicans are raising millions and throwing that money into attack ads that are clearing the airwaves. Republicans especially hope to define lesser-known Democratic candidates in a negative way before they can define themselves.
Democrats must win at least three seats to regain the majority, but they also defend Senator Doug Jones in deep red Alabama, a state where Trump has a 28-point net approval rating. If Jones loses, that means Democrats must win four seats and the White House (where her party’s vice president could vote to break ties in the Senate), or five seats net without the White House advantage. Many of these races are highly competitive, but Democrats have more paths to a majority than last summer.
Republican strategists were in full panic mode a few months ago. Now they sound a little more optimistic than their candidates can hang on, following a slight uptick in the mood of Trump’s battlefield.
“I think things have improved significantly for Republicans over the last month,” Cameron said.
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