To survive what's fast becoming the election cycle from hell, Senate Republicans' game plan has essentially been to hide from their chief problem:
Donald Trump.
But Trump has a way of finding them. Take a rally he held in Ohio on Wednesday night, where Trump attacked the state's Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and praised the Republican one, Sen. Rob Portman. The senator, Trump said, has "really been good to me and I appreciate it."
It's safe to say getting a shout-out from Trump has not been on Portman's reelection to-do list. Portman has thrown his support behind Trump since he clinched the GOP nomination, but he -- like most other vulnerable Senate Republicans up for reelection -- have been forced to publicly disagree again and again with some of the more controversial things Trump said.
Trump is so potentially toxic to the party that most vulnerable Republicans are refusing to even campaign with their party's presumptive nominee, or appear with him in their state. (For what it's worth, Portman hasn't ruled out appearing with Trump. Their schedules haven't matched up yet, he says.)
We've devoted tons of cyberspace on this blog to explaining why Trump is potentially bad news for Senate Republicans, who are trying to hang onto their slim majority in the Senate via races like Ohio. In a nutshell: Trump is setting up to bethe least-liked major party nominee in modern times. Among the very voters Portman and other Senate Republicans trying to win reelection in Obama states need to woo -- millennials, women and Latinos -- he is strongly disliked. The broader electoral map already skews Democratic in part because Republicans have failed to make inroads with non-white voters even before Trump came into the picture.
This isn't the first time Trump has made Portman's life complicated. Trump was also in Ohio last week, where he described the Trans Pacific Partnership as "a death blow to manufacturing." Portman has said he doesn't support that trade deal either -- even though he helped craft free trade deals as the U.S. trade representative for George Bush, a part of his resume Democrats are sure to hammer him on.
And Portman can expect to see/hear much more from Trump. His campaign says he plans to focus on 17 states in the general election -- 13 of those could have a potentially competitive Senate race this November including -- you guessed it -- Ohio.
Source: tribal. al
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