How Toxic Will Trump Be For The GOP In Tomorrow's Primaries?

Tomorrow is Tuesday... primary day in 4 important states: North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia and Ohio-- each of which was carried by Señor Trumpanzee. If you think the GOP primary in West Virginia is crackpotsville... well, you're right, but almost sane compared to what's going on in Indiana. Last week we looked at the mess the Indiana senate primary has turned into. The Republicans in the battle there are charging each other with things like "Drunken driving, self-dealing and false advertising," while all 3 candidates-- Congressman Todd Rokita, Congressman Luke Messer and former state Rep. Mike Braun-- are "doing their best to portray themselves as the second coming" of... Señor Trumpanzee. If it comes down to who is the most Trump-like-- and it well may-- Braun should have the edge.

Over the weekend Bill Barrow surveyed the Trumpist landscape in all for states for A.P. The nomination fights are pulling the party to the right, leaving some leaders worried their candidates will be out of a step with the broader electorate in November. "GOP candidates are jockeying to be seen as the most conservative, the most anti-Washington and the most loyal to the president. It’s evidence of the onetime outsider’s deepening imprint on the Republican Party he commandeered less than two years ago."

In Indiana, Republicans will pick from among three Senate candidates who have spent much of the race praising Trump and bashing each other. In West Virginia, a former federal convict and coal baron has taken aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) with racially charged accusations of corruption.

In Ohio, Republicans are certain to nominate someone more conservative than outgoing GOP Gov. John Kasich, a 2016 presidential candidate, moderate and frequent Trump critic. Even Kasich’s former running mate, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, has pledged to unwind some of Kasich’s centrist policies, including the expansion of the Medicaid government insurance program following Democrats’ 2010 health insurance overhaul.

With Trump’s job approval hanging around 40 percent and the GOP-run Congress less than half that, the abandonment of the middle has some Republicans raising alarms.

“The far left and the far right always think they are going to dominate these elections,” said John Weaver, a Trump critic and top strategist to Kasich, who has been become a near-pariah in the primary to succeed him.

Weaver's reasoning has one little problem. There is no far left among Democratic politicians. The battles in the Democratic Party are between right-wing Democrats like Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ) on the one hand and mainstream slightly left of center Democrats on the other side. There are 5 Democrats with 100% Progressive Punch ratings this year: Jamie Raskin (MD), Jan Schakowsky (IL), Barbara Lee (CA), Karen Bass (CA) and John Lewis (GA). None are extremists; none are remotely "far left."

On the other hand, putative Democrat Conor Lamb (Blue Dog-PA), who the GOP just spent over a million dollars smearing as a far right lunatic has a ZERO rating, making him far to the right of most Republicans in the House. And he's a DCCC role model! There are 22 Republicans with zero scores-- and all of them really are far right (or pretending to be): Karen Handel (GA), Bradley Byrne (AL), Jackie Walorski (IN), Pete Sessions (TX), Devin Nunes (CA), Brett Guthrie (KY), Ken Calvert (CA), Sam Johnson (TX), Mac Thornberry (TX), Joe Wilson (SC), Kay Granger (TX), Steve Scalise (LA), Gregg Harper (MS), Steve Womack (AR), Dennis Ross (FL), Rick Crawford (AR), Duncan Hunter (CA), Austin Scott (GA), Trey Gowdy (SC), Gus Bilirakis (FL), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ) and Lou Barletta (PA). And it isn't just their voting records; remember Joe Wilson? He's the one who screamed "You lie" while Obama was delivering the State of the Union. Can you imagine a Democrat doing something like that to Trump, even though every word out of his face is a lie? Lou Barletta is running for the U.S. as an open racist. And what can anyone say about Devin Nunes other than he's counting on Trump eventually pardoning him? OK, back to Barrow:

“You may think it’s wise in a primary to handcuff yourself to the president,” Weaver said. “But when the ship goes down, you may not be able to get the cuffs off.”

North Carolina Republicans will weigh in on the fate of Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger, facing a primary challenger who almost upset him two years ago. Pittenger features Trump prominently in his campaign. Challenger Mark Harris, a prominent Charlotte pastor, has tried to turn the table, saying Pittenger is a creature of Washington who refuses to help Trump “drain that swamp.”

Tough primaries certainly don’t have to be disastrous. They often gin up voter attention and engagement, and can signal strong turnout in the general election.

Dallas Woodhouse, who runs the North Carolina Republican Party, said candidates benefit because they must “make their arguments and voters become more aware of the election.”

Imagine if Pelosi, Lujan, Sena and Bresler ran the DCCC that way, instead of squelching primaries and doing all they can to crush progressives who run against their shit candidates from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. That hasn't been working out very well for crap DCCC recruits so far like Jay Hulings (TX-23), Alex Triantaphyllis (TX-07), Tim Gomes (NY-02), R.D Huffstetler (VA-05) or some of the others the DCCC fattened up on contributions only to see them fall by the wayside to grassroots candidates.

Few national Republicans look at West Virginia and see helpful enthusiasm.

The orange ape spoke up this morning

Former coal executive Don Blankenship has accused McConnell of creating jobs for “China people” and charges that the senator’s “China family” has given him millions of dollars. McConnell’s wife is Trump’s transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, who was born in Taiwan.

Indiana Senate candidates are trying to appeal to Trump voters by adopting the president’s harsh immigration rhetoric and penchant for personal insults. The candidates have even channeled Trump by assigning derisive nicknames to one another: “Lyin’” Todd Rokita, Luke “Missing” Messer and “Tax Hike” Mike Braun.

In several of the Tuesday primaries, Democrats are watching with delight, and having less trouble aligning behind nominees. The chief beneficiaries would be Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, both sitting on healthy campaign accounts after avoiding their own primary fights.

The leading Democrat for the North Carolina seat, Marine veteran Dan McCready, has raised almost $2 million, slightly more than Harris and Pittenger combined, in a district Trump won by about 12 percentage points. “He will absolutely make this competitive,” Harris said.

In the Ohio governor’s race, liberal former Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former state Attorney General Richard Cordray have managed to avoid open warfare. Cordray, who also led the federal consumer watchdog agency launched under President Barack Obama, is the favorite.

Republicans watched their state party, led by pro-Trump leadership that replaced Kasich allies after the 2016 elections, endorse state Attorney General Mike Dewine, while Taylor has effectively shunned an earlier endorsement from Kasich.

“If Ohio Republicans are divided into Trump Republicans and Kasich Republicans, the Trump Republicans have won,” said the state Democratic chairman, David Pepper. “That helps us.”

Gallup measures Trump with an 89 percent job approval rating among Republicans nationally, but 35 percent among independents and 42 percent overall. Historically, presidents below 50 percent watch their party suffer steep losses in midterm elections.

Democrats must flip about two dozen Republican-held seats to reclaim a House majority, and they must do it with Republican-run legislatures having drawn many districts to the GOP’s advantage. In North Carolina, Harris said the makeup of the district, which stretches from Republican areas of metro Charlotte east through small towns and rural counties, makes his pro-Trump, anti-establishment message a primary and November winner.

Senate Democrats are just two seats shy of a majority, but must defend 26 incumbents, 10 in states where Trump won, including Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia. Republicans are defending nine seats, just one in a state Trump lost.

One nice thing that could pay off in the future: something like eight Kentucky counties are in the West Virginia media markets and they're hearing all this "swamp captain Mitch" and "cocaine Mitch" stuff on their TVs and radios all day and night. It seems to be working for Blankenship at the last minute. Last night Alex Isenstadt reported that West Virginia's establishment Democrats are worrying that Blankenship's candidacy is experiencing a sudden last minute surge. Two weeks ago Blankenship was in third place but after a week of attacking McConnell and Jenkins, he's in first place and Jenkins is disappearing as a contender. People seem to like the anti-McConnell approach. Private polling show him back in first place and "many are convinced that a Blankenship win, coming just months after the disastrous Alabama Senate race, would destroy the party’s prospects of defeating Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in November."

Trumpanzee Jr. tweeted a plea to "the people of West Virginia to make a wise decision and reject Blankenship. No more fumbles like Alabama. We need to win in November."

Particularly concerning to Republicans is Blankenship’s TV spending. Over the final six days of the race, the self-funding coal baron is set to spend over $640,000 on commercials, according to media buying totals-- more than Jenkins and Morrisey combined. Blankenship has spent over $2.5 million on TV ads in total, far more than his rivals.

What is also distressing, senior Republicans say, is that Jenkins and Morrisey spent nearly all of the campaign savaging each other. Further complicating matters is that a Democratic super PAC, Duty and Country, has invested $1.8 million targeting Jenkins in an effort to keep him from winning the GOP primary, convinced that he would pose a formidable challenge to Manchin.

The bloodbath may ultimately be to the benefit of Blankenship, who has faced far fewer incoming attacks.

Andy Seré, a Jenkins strategist, argued that Morrisey’s attacks against Jenkins “have helped Blankenship,” and that with his last-minute attacks against Blankenship, “Morrisey is scrambling to fix the mess he and his enablers made.”

“But West Virginians see through it,” Seré added. “We are confident the Schumer-Morrisey alliance will fail and Evan Jenkins will prevail."

Happiest man in West Virginia has got to be Joe Manchin. In fact, didn't some notoriously right-of-center anti-gay MSNBC hostess endorse him for president in the last few days? More good news for Manchin. Blankenship is threatening to run as an independent if he doesn't win the GOP primary tomorrow. Blankie: " have not ruled out anything. I’ve said that I cannot let him win because of the opioid connection and Planned Parenthood connection." Manchin should build a cathedral to thank God.