Every Republican In Congress Deserves Trump-- Weaponizing His Own Toxicity Against Them

Erik Paulsen is a mainstream conservative who won his suburban Twin Cities seat (MN-03) in 2008 when Jim Ramstadt resigned. Previously Paulsen had served as the majority leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Although the 2008 race was tough-- Paulsen beating Democrat Ashwin Madia 48.5% to 40.9%-- he sailed through his reelection bids... until he got on the wrong side of Señor Trumpanzee. I'll get to that in a minute.

The district-- west, north and south of Minneapolis-- had gone from red to purple during Paulsen's tenure, Obama winning it both time, albeit narrowly. When Paulsen was first elected the PVI was R+1. Now it is D+1. Paulsen's voting record was garden variety GOP but his district had been getting more and more moderate and extreme conservatism was a foreign ideology by 2016. Caucus day was a disaster for conservatives that year. Bernie didn't just overwhelmingly beat Hillary (61.7% to 38.3%) but his 126,229 votes beat all 3 of the top Republican vote getters combined:

• Rubio- 41,397
• Cruz- 33,181
• Trumpanzee- 24,473

Paulsen still managed to win in 2016-- 223,077 (56.7%) to 169,243 (43.0%) with relative ease but Trump was a major drag in the Minneapolis suburbs. Hillary beat him in the district by over 9 points, 50.8% to 41.4% Going into 2018, Paulsen was worried. He raised $5,778,480 and spent $5,862,137. And the NRCC was worried too. They were defending incumbents everywhere but they felt good about Paulsen and put $2,292,761 into the race and directed the Congressional Leadership Fund SuperPAC to put in another $946,202 and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to spend a quarter million on Paulsen's behalf. The Koch brothers put in another $150,000 + and all kinds of right-wing groups came to Paulsen's defense, from the NRA and Defending Main Street to a bunch of fringe anti-Choice groups. The DCCC had saddled itself with a right-of-center rich guy with nothing to to attract anyone except one thing: "I'm not Trump and Paulsen is." Fighting for his political life, Paulsen tried distancing himself from Trump. In the end, the Dem, Dean Phillips, pulverized him, 202,402 (55.6%) to 160,838 (44.2%).

But there's more to it than just that. Remember, Trump is very unpopular is the Minneapolis suburbs-- and he knew it. In fact, Nathan Gonzales explained how Trump weaponized that unpopularity-- to get even with Paulsen. Gonzales wrote that "Trump still won’t publicly admit he was a significant factor in Republicans’ loss of the House in 2018. But a behind-the-scenes moment captured in a new book suggests he is more politically self-aware than he leads on. We know that Trump doesn’t admit mistakes or commit sins. It’s not in his personality or good for his brand to acknowledge any weakness. But, according to Politico’s Tim Alberta, the president endorsed a vulnerable member of Congress in an intentional effort to weaken his candidacy." Yep... Paulsen. Every Republican deserves this fate.

In one case, Trump endorsed as a means of punishment. Having heard that Minnesota congressman Erik Paulsen was distancing himself from the White House in the hope of holding his seat in the Twin Cities’ suburbs, the president stewed and asked that the political shop send a tweet of support for Paulsen-- thereby sabotaging the moderate Republican’s efforts,” according to an excerpt in Alberta’s new book American Carnage, shared with Axios.

“When his aides demurred, Trump sent the tweet himself, issuing a ‘Strong Endorsement!’ of the congressman in a late-night post that left Paulsen fuming and his Democratic opponent giddy.”

...Trump’s involvement in Paulsen’s 3rd District race consisted of a single tweet and the congressman lost by a dozen points. If the president had done an event for him, Paulsen would probably have lost by a larger margin.

...[Generally] Trump also didn’t even try (or was successfully deterred) to wade into less friendly territory where he was toxic. Twenty-two of 25 Republican members in districts Hillary Clinton carried lost reelection last cycle. By limiting his visits to friendly territory, the president was essentially padding his personal win-loss record. It’s like Alabama’s football team scheduling Mercer, Fresno State and Western Carolina.

...While Trump might have a more nuanced idea of his political standing than previously advertised, the bottom line is that he believes Republicans had a successful midterm election with his help. And that will lead the president to talk more about immigration and replicate his strategy from 2018 to 2020.

Trump is talking about campaigning heavily is Minnesota in 2020. This will be a dream come true for Tom Bakk, minority leader of the state Senate. The state has a Democratic governor and Democratic Party-controlled state House. What they really want to do now is flip the Senate. As of today, there are 35 Republicans and 32 Democrats in the state Senate. All 67 seats in the chamber  are up for election in 2020 and if Democrats have a net gain of just 2 seats they'll control the chamber. "Jeremy [Miller, the Senate President] and Paul [Gazelka, the majority leader] are both very worried," a friend of mine in the legislature told me this morning... We'll probably take 3 or 4 seats but if Trump starts spending a lot of time in the state... the sky's the limit. A couple of those rallies he does before election day and half a dozen seats are going to flip. He's our not-so-secret weapon."