Republicans nervous about losing the Senate

[struggle4progress]

By Seung Min Kim and Mike DeBonis
May 10, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

... In recent weeks, GOP senators have been forced into a difficult political dance as polling shifts in favor of Democrats: Tout their own response to the coronavirus outbreak without overtly distancing themselves from a president whose management of the crisis is under intense scrutiny but who still holds significant sway with Republican voters.

“It is a bleak picture right now all across the map, to be honest with you,” said one Republican strategist closely involved in Senate races who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss concerns within the party. “This whole conversation is a referendum on Trump, and that is a bad place for Republicans to be. But it’s also not a forever place” ...

... a return to normalcy ahead of the elections is far from a given as the death toll continues to rise and economic data paints a grim picture, meaning that the president’s handling of the pandemic could be the determining factor in not only for his reelection but for Republicans’ ability to hold onto the Senate. In short, as goes Trump, so likely goes the Senate majority.

The emerging consensus of several Republican strategists is that GOP incumbents should be able to hang on in states Trump won in 2016 if the president can hang on to those states himself. That list includes North Carolina, Arizona and Iowa, which Democrats are heavily targeting this cycle ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-grow-nervous-about-losing-the-senate-amid-worries-over-trumps-handling-of-the-pandemic/2020/05/09/65691184-915f-11ea-a9c0-73b93422d691_story.html

[struggle4progress]

1. Coronavirus collapse could break him

John Harwood
Updated 6:01 AM ET, Sun May 10, 2020

The last time an incumbent president lost re-election -- George H.W. Bush, in 1992 -- an "it's the economy, stupid" campaign theme took him down. Unemployment then was hovering around 7.5%.

In the calamitous spring of 2020, that sounds like a long-lost boomtime. The Labor Department last week reported unemployment at 14.7%, with 20 million jobs lost in April. Administration economists warn US output may plummet at a 40% annual rate in the second quarter.

Those staggering measures of economic suffering do not guarantee that President Donald Trump will meet the same one-term fate as Bush, who lost to Bill Clinton. But they underscore the uphill fight Trump faces, and explain his abrupt shift from coronavirus containment to economic reopening ...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/10/politics/trump-reelection-economy-unemployment/index.html

[struggle4progress]

2. Record number hold a strong opinion

Harry Enten, CNN
Updated 7:37 AM ET, Sat May 9, 2020

President Donald Trump's campaign is about to unleash a "Death Star" against former Vice President Joe Biden, according to campaign manager Brad Parscale. In any other era with any other president, such imagery might seem out of place. It makes sense for Trump.

Trump's path to victory will probably rely upon defining Biden through negative advertising. What's far from clear is whether that will work.

Right now, most voters feel very strongly about Trump. We can see this in polls which ask voters whether they have a strongly favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or strongly unfavorable view of him. If you average polls from late March onward from Grinnell College/Selzer and Company, Fox News and Monmouth University, 27% of voters have a very favorable view of Trump and 42% have a very unfavorable view of him.

All told, 69% of voters have either a strongly favorable or unfavorable view of the President ...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/09/politics/trump-favorable-vs-unfavorable-opinion/index.html

[GoCubsGo]

7. We all remember what happened to the Death Star. Twice.

Time to make it a hat trick.

[ananda]

9. I think Mark Kelly will win in AZ.

No matter what Trump does.

[malaise]

3. 80,000 fucking dead people and they are afraid to separate themselves from this incompetent

monster. Fuck the collective pack.

[GoCubsGo]

4. Good. But, we need to stay extra vigilant.

They've backed themselves into a corner, so they're getting desperate, which means they're more dangerous than ever. They'll try ANYTHING to remain in power. Don't put anything past them. Just go back and watch Friday's GOP circle Jerk that Trump and several of them had to get an idea of their mental state. Beyond putrid.

[struggle4progress]

5. The folly of blaming Beijing

By Evan Osnos
May 10, 2020

When an Ebola epidemic erupted in West Africa, in 2014, the United States and China, the world’s two largest economic powers, responded in starkly different fashions. The Obama Administration dispatched the 101st Airborne and other troops to build treatment hospitals, and donated more than half of the $3.9 billion in relief funds collected from governments worldwide. Within six months, the outbreak was under control, and the U.S.-led effort was hailed as a template for handling future epidemics.

Chinese mining and construction firms had big businesses in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, but Beijing struggled to mount a humanitarian response. Between August and October of that year, nearly ten thousand Chinese nationals fled those countries in a panic. China, unaccustomed to such missions, sent medical teams and supplies, but, over all, it contributed less than four per cent of the relief funds.

Six years later, however, neither nation can claim to have led the way in managing the covid-19 pandemic, which has so far killed more than a quarter of a million people around the world. The efforts of both have been marred by denial, coverup, and self-deception ...

In April, the Associated Press obtained government documents showing that leaders in Beijing knew the potential scale of the threat by January 14th, but Xi waited six days before warning the public — a catastrophic interlude of dinners, train rides, and handshakes that helped unleash the pandemic. The government staged a public-relations offensive, touting China’s exports of medical gear to other nations — a tactic dubbed “mask diplomacy.” It also suggested .. that the source of the virus was a delegation from the United States that had participated in the Military World Games in Wuhan in October. The offensive backfired: buyers complained of faulty or undelivered shipments ...

The Trump Administration, for its part, has cut off funds to the World Health Organization and declined to join the European-led fund for vaccine research. Trump’s delusions—that the virus would vanish in a “miracle,” that an antimalarial drug would shortcut science, that ingesting disinfectant could help—have further reduced the Administration’s reputation to a baleful farce. Last week, Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister of Australia, wrote in Foreign Affairs that the Administration had “left an indelible impression around the world of a country incapable of handling its own crises, let alone anybody else’s” ...

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/18/the-folly-of-trumps-blame-beijing-coronavirus-strategy

[cyclonefence]

6. Took them long enough

Too bad this realization came too late to get Trump out of office via impeachment.

[beachbumbob]

8. GOP will be lucky if they only lose 10 seats in the Senate

american people's anger will be felt Nov 3rd

[tanyev]

10. Tots and pears.

[SWBTATTReg]

11. All I hope for (besides a win in Nov. 2020) is that we go after the incompetent fools that allowed

this whole CV mess (and all of the other screw ups caused by this incompetent administration) to not go unpunished.

Don't do another broad brush of forgiveness like they did after the housing and/or market crash of 2008-09, where those that caused a great deal of these things to happen, got away scot-free. I still remember angrily, what happened, who was involved, and yet, even today (before CV), my stock market valuations still never caught up/recovered.

[Vogon_Glory]

12. I agree. No let-bygones-be-bygones this time

Not only have the oligarchs and senior Republicans done horrible things to the American people, but President Obama’s free passes allowed the Rethuglies to regroup, start their “Tea Party” campaign, and led to their win in 2016.

No more kind hearts and love pats.

[mitch96]

13. So if we do win the prez and senate, what should be done first?

I think Obama wasted a great opportunity the first two years when he had the house and senate. I loved the guy and trying to bring hands across the isle did not workout very well.
So what should be done in the two years the Dem's will have power?
Fix what tRump broke? Foreign relations? Economy? Health care? Virus fix?
I think it would be great if in the first few months all Dem's and progressives that were in the different previous administrations got hired and put us back together again. Quickly.
They have the experience and know how to do it... No OJT we don't have the time..
YMMV
m

[kentuck]

14. Republicans do not deserve to be in power anywhere.

They will kill us all.