Trump's Loss Will Be Shatteringly Personal-- And Devastating To The GOP Up And Down The Ballot

Still harping on the made-up "fact" that Obama founded ISIS-- which he supposedly walked back last week-- Trump was at an ill-conceived rally in Fairfield, Connecticut Saturday evening, warning voters he'd "never, ever forgive" them if he loses. "I will never, ever forgive the people of Connecticut. I will never forgive the people of Florida. Pennsylvania and Ohio..."

When Trump loses in a jaw-dropping landslide in November-- virtually wiped out, outside the hatred-and-resentment-fueled Deep South-- it will be a very personal defeat. No one will be able to blame conservative ideology or the Republican platform for the massive ass-whoopin' that's coming Trump's way. He is going to be labeled the Ultimate Loser in American History and it's all personal. What the voters are rejecting is Trump himself-- his essence as a human being, his ugly, deformed personality, his unsuitable temperament, and his horrible nature/mental illnesses. By October, the battleground states are going to be Montana, Kansas, Arizona and Georgia, with Trump desperately trying to claw his way back towards a win in South Carolina and Kentucky. He'll be lucky for every electoral vote over 150 he gets-- and if he keeps provoking Ted Cruz, the election's biggest surprise could come in the Texas suburbs of Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Austin.

Brainwashed Republican primary voters weren't capable of the elementary discernment it takes too recognize Trump as a con man. And now the RNC is setting him up to take the blame for the losses they're looking at in the Senate and House, where Democrats expect to win, not on Hillary's coattails but on the negative coattails Republican incumbents and challengers are riding.

Sunday evening, Colin Diersing, writing for the National Journal enumerated the ways how the Democratic Party is trying to use Trump and Trumpism to sink down ballot Republicans district by district-- TLS: the Trumpanzee Localization Strategy. Demo­crats in down-bal­lot races around the coun­try," wrote Diersing, "are po­s­i­tion­ing them­selves to run against a Re­pub­lic­an nom­in­ee with his­tor­ic­ally high un­fa­vor­able rat­ings by ty­ing their op­pon­ents to Trump. But listen care­fully, as each one de­scribes a slightly dif­fer­ent ver­sion of Trump, draw­ing out the as­pects of the real es­tate mogul that most clearly link him to the loc­al Re­pub­lic­an can­did­ate. Be­cause even when na­tion­al­iz­ing an elec­tion works to a party’s ad­vant­age, polit­ics are still fun­da­ment­ally loc­al."

In Ore­gon’s gubernat­ori­al race, Demo­crats are brand­ing Re­pub­lic­an Bud Pierce and Trump as “a pair of out-of-touch mil­lion­aires who will leave middle-class fam­il­ies be­hind.” In Vir­gin­ia’s 10th Dis­trict, they’re re­play­ing Trump’s con­tro­ver­sial im­mig­ra­tion com­ments next to those of Rep. Bar­bara Com­stock com­par­ing the track­ing of pack­ages to track­ing of im­mig­rants. And in New Hamp­shire, Sen. Kelly Ayotte has come un­der fire for at­tend­ing a fun­draiser with lob­by­ists from a “Trump-style” uni­versity.

Kelly Ayotte's and her campaign are failing to run away from Trump

The at­tacks are, in part, a re­sponse to grow­ing evid­ence that many voters view Trump as something of a polit­ic­al an­om­aly, who is mean­ing­fully dif­fer­ent even from Re­pub­lic­ans who will sup­port him. To fully be­ne­fit from a po­ten­tial anti-Trump wave, Demo­crats will have to per­suade voters that the same char­ac­ter­ist­ics they dis­like in Trump can be found in loc­al Re­pub­lic­ans.

...In Cali­for­nia’s 10th Dis­trict, Demo­crats are util­iz­ing Rep. Jeff Dun­ham’s per­son­al wealth to link him to Trump, say­ing he’s “not just a mil­lion­aire—he’s a mil­lion­aire who sup­ports a dan­ger­ous bil­lion­aire.”

Some Demo­crats see Lu­Ann Ben­nett’s chal­lenge to Com­stock as a mod­el for us­ing a can­did­ate’s past state­ments on policy as the fo­cus. The cam­paign launched a site called StopTrump­Com­stock.com, which de­clares that “a vote for Com­stock is a vote for Trump’s policies.”

Demo­crats see high­light­ing spe­cif­ic policy po­s­i­tions as a widely ap­plic­able strategy, es­pe­cially in dis­tricts where Trump’s com­ments on im­mig­ra­tion, abor­tion, or oth­er sub­jects have giv­en polit­ic­al charge to already tough is­sues for Re­pub­lic­ans.

...Com­stock has also been the tar­get of an­oth­er Demo­crat­ic strategy: find­ing loc­al con­nec­tions for par­tic­u­larly un­pop­u­lar Trump state­ments, such as those about the fam­ily of Capt. Hu­may­un Khan, who are Vir­gin­ia res­id­ents. Ben­nett put out a state­ment ty­ing Trump’s com­ments to Com­stock: “That she con­tin­ues to sup­port a politi­cian who at­tacks Vir­gini­an mil­it­ary fam­il­ies and is hos­tile to our Muslim com­munity solely for polit­ic­al gain is ab­hor­rent and rep­re­hens­ible.”

Oc­ca­sion­ally, Trump has in­jec­ted him­self in­to the cam­paign, to the de­light of loc­al Demo­crats. In Ari­zona, where Sen. John Mc­Cain faces an un­ex­pec­tedly com­pet­it­ive race, Demo­crats are us­ing Mc­Cain’s con­tin­ued sup­port for Trump-- des­pite per­son­al at­tacks from the nom­in­ee-- to ar­gue that the long­time sen­at­or is no longer a “mav­er­ick” in­ter­ested in bi­par­tis­an­ship.

...The need for Demo­crats to find loc­al con­nec­tions could al­ways change if voters be­gin to view simply en­dors­ing Trump as a re­flec­tion on a can­did­ate’s char­ac­ter, Demo­crat­ic poll­ster Celinda Lake said. While her most re­cent re­search showed voters still mak­ing a clear dis­tinc­tion between Trump and oth­er Re­pub­lic­ans, she said his in­flam­mat­ory state­ments could even­tu­ally push voters to the point where they view any­one sup­port­ing Trump as dir­ectly im­plic­ated.

“As he gets more and more crazy, and as more and more Re­pub­lic­ans draw a dis­tinc­tion between them­selves, it may leave the ones that haven’t done that more isol­ated,” Lake said. “What I just don’t know is when voters reach their lim­it.”

We asked DuWayne Gregory, Presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature and the Democratic Party candidate for the Long Island district along the South Shore currently represented by Trump crony Peter King, how he's highlighting the relationship between the two-- who often bicker like an old married couple-- in his campaign. Gregory has told us that the overwhelming amount of his voter contact is about the issues the people in Nassau and Suffolk counties want to hear about: jobs, an economy that works for everyone not just the rich and well-connected, good schools, a clean environment... But DuWayne did tell us yesterday that "Peter King will have to reconcile with himself and more importantly the voters how he believes Donald Trump is fit to be Commander-in-Chief. The average voter is starting to see the danger of a Donald Trump presidency and will hold anyone accountable for putting politics before the country."

We also asked Paul Clements, a Political Science Professor at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo and the Democratic candidate running in the district Fred Upton has been roosting on since 1987, if Trump is an issue in southwest Michigan. He told us he spends most of the time talking with voters about the issues that are most important to them like jobs and economic opportunities for their families and communities. Students are struggling with student debt, and Upton voted for the biggest increase in interest rates on student loans in history. Seniors are struggling to get by, and Upton not only blocked Medicare from negotiated drug prices with pharmaceutical companies; he also blocked imports of generic drugs from Canada. Last year he was harassing Planned Parenthood, and now he votes for a bill that ties funding to address the Zika virus to defunding Planned Parenthood, while 65,000 Michiganders depend on Planned Parenthood for health care. But confidence in Trump is no higher in southwest Michigan than in the rest of the country. As Clements told us, "Both Trump and Upton are climate science deniers. They both want to starve funding for education and infrastructure by cutting taxes for millionaires. Neither trust women to make their own health care decisions. Insofar as Trump has an agenda, a vote for Upton is mostly a vote to support it."

Please consider helping DuWayne Gregory and Paul Clements build a strong progressive movement inside Congress... no matter who the president is after January.