Trump's Losing, So When Are Republican Candidates Going to Abandon Him?

[babylonsister]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/trumps-losing-so-when-are-republican-candidates-going-to-abandon-him

Letter from Trump’s Washington
Trump’s Losing, So When Are Republican Candidates Going to Abandon Him?
Spoiler alert: they aren’t.
By Susan B. Glasser
July 16, 2020

snip//

The best, or at least most vivid, explanation for this phenomenon that I’ve seen is a recent piece in Rolling Stone by the Republican strategist Tim Miller, an adviser to Jeb Bush’s doomed 2016 Presidential campaign who became a fervent Never Trumper. Miller asked nine G.O.P.-consultant friends who are still welcome in the Party why the “dumpster fire” that is the Trump 2020 campaign has not caused their Republican candidates to abandon the President. “There are two options, you can be on this hell ship, or you can be in the water drowning,” one told Miller. Miller’s report from the U.S.S. Hellship suggests that the trapped sailors are well aware of how badly Trump is faring but are unable to bail out—especially in competitive elections, where the Party can ill afford to lose any Republican votes. In rural Texas, one of Miller’s informants pointed out, “Trump gets like Saddam Hussein level numbers here.” Cornyn desperately needs those Trump superfans in order to win statewide. Loyalty to Trump among such voters now outweighs any policy position, which means that catering to them requires Cornyn to strike a hard pro-Trump line, even if it further alienates the suburban moderates now wavering on the President. “No dissent is tolerated,” a consultant in another state told Miller. And, besides, another strategist told him, the election is all about Trump—there’s no use pretending otherwise. Their observations are strikingly similar to a conversation that I had last month with a veteran Republican pollster, whose clients are running in competitive states. I asked him whether, given the bad and worsening poll numbers, we might soon see his candidates running away from the President. “I don’t think so,” he said, citing the Trump Twitter curse. “He stirs up his base all the time, so you can’t take a position to reach out to the independents who have trouble with his persona, because the Republican Trump base will turn on you in a second.” And so the Hellship sails on.
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There are many other factors, of course, ranging from the fight that has already begun for control over the post-Trump Republican Party to the default partisanship that makes Republicans believe that sticking with Trump, no matter how disastrous his decisions may be or how distasteful they find his fulminations, is better than the Democratic alternative.

Another factor to consider is the spectre of 2016. There are many politicians who remain convinced that, with Trump having pulled off a historic upset once before, he can somehow make the improbable happen again, polls be damned. The President is clearly in this camp, but so are a number of Democrats scarred by the false confidence of four years ago. “I don’t believe these numbers,” Debbie Dingell, a representative from the swing state of Michigan, told an online Democratic event recently, after yet another set of polls came out showing Biden well ahead in her must-win state. Dingell, who has taken to calling herself Debbie Downer, comes by her skepticism legitimately, having warned the Hillary Clinton campaign, unsuccessfully, that it was in trouble in Michigan in 2016, despite polls that showed Clinton comfortably ahead. A new Monmouth University survey suggests that, in Pennsylvania, there are many people who agree with Dingell. Although the poll showed Biden leading Trump by thirteen points in the state—which, like Michigan, is another Democratic electoral must-win—fifty-seven per cent of voters said that they believed there was a hidden pro-Trump vote that was not turning up in the surveys. “The specter of a secret Trump vote looms large in 2020,” the survey’s director, Patrick Murray, concluded.

Perhaps it is fitting that the fate of President Trump, a Presidential liar for the ages, should come down to the question of whether large numbers of Americans are lying to pollsters about their support for him. Either way, there is a lesson here. Imagine if Republicans lose this fall because they would not, or could not, believe that their fellow-citizens might actually be telling the truth?

[redstatebluegirl]

1. They are tied so tightly to him now I don't see how they can.

They have made their nest. They turned the party over to the far right of their party that includes the racists and fascists. Now they can't pull it back without losing the Senate. You don't win national elections or state elections going to the fringe.

[Aristus]

2. Exactly, they aren't. The cornerstone of Trump Republicanism is never admitting you were wrong.

Obfuscate, cover-up, blame someone else, but never, ever admit you were wrong.

[durablend]

3. They can't

They abandon Trump and their supporters will hang them in effigy

[Iliyah]

4. No, well the ones that have a lock . .

the others that maybe in trouble - ummmmmmmmm ..

Ms. Concern is in trouble like a few others may avoid shithole.

[FM123]

5. I think the die-hards are going to just stay and die with him.

They do it because they can’t admit the payoff is never coming, and to save themselves from the embarrassment of having to admit they were catastrophically wrong.

(I read this on an earlier thread from a Slate article about Mary Trump)

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Folks,this is all about

avoiding Prison or forced to resign their Offices if the Senate becomes Democratic Controlled as well as the White House. Nothing more,nothing less.

[pwb]

7. They can't. And they are fucked. They were with him, period.

Big time. I predict 60 Democratic senators come November.

[Nikki28]

8. I think

they know the fix is in,which explains their behavior since this man took up their party. i keep remembering when Paul Ryan told
Kevin M that they are family when the conversation came up of Trump in Putin's pocket.