The Tribune

With Charlie Harper

THE Republicans are widely favored to win majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate this November. This has been a heartening rallying cry for the GOP, but their increasingly smug assurance of victory might be faltering a bit these days.

Most commentators, including especially those in the national liberal media, have believed in a Democratic election setback this November. They base this belief partly on the pattern in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries of the party of the newly elected president generally suffering at the polls in the first election after his victory. Whopping Democratic setbacks in 1994 to then-congressman Newt Gingrich’s Compact with America and in 2012 to the Tea Party-fueled revolt against Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act have established the template for a potentially calamitous showing by US President Joe Biden and his Democratic Party in six months.

In response, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has admitted that he is simply biding his time until he resumes his rightful place as majority leader when the new Senate convenes in January. He has said often, in public, that the Republican Party has no particular plans to establish a policy platform from which to contest this year’s elections. His priority will simply be to gum up the works for Biden & Company, sometimes using the controversial filibuster rule or sheer obstructionism to hold up nominations and policy initiatives from the White House and congressional Democratic leaders. His stated aim is to see Biden fail. That’s the policy initiative the Republicans in the Senate are offering to voters.

Over in the House, minority leader Kevin McCarthy openly lusts for the opportunity to serve as Speaker of the House in a Republican majority chamber that he clearly expects to lead starting in January. But McCarthy has so far had no better luck than his recent predecessors in leading a fractious Republican caucus in the House. The long shadow of former president Donald Trump influences almost everything McCarthy does as he cravenly continues to endorse fallacious conspiracy theories about the “stolen” 2020 election.

No significant evidence of such fraud has ever been revealed, though it is certainly not for a lack of trying by the Republican National Committee and numerous other party organizations and individuals. Publicly at least, GOP congresspersons still deem it prudent to hew to Trump’s own line, which essentially boils down to the notion that he could not possibly have been defeated in a fair fight.

McCarthy himself was embarrassingly ensnared in the Trump vs reality conundrum this week. The January 6 congressional commission has leaked information about that day’s infamous assault on the US capitol almost every day. It was reported about a week ago that McCarthy had harshly criticized Trump for not calling off his dogs during the riot that engulfed the capitol in January, and that McCarthy thought Trump should resign as a result of his incitement of the riot and inaction as it unfolded.

McCarthy vociferously denied it. However, this was immediately followed by the release of tapes revealing that he said exactly what had been reported. No problem though, apparently. From his political exile in Florida, Trump let it be known that he would not discard McCarthy for this indiscretion. Hardly anyone outside the studios at MSNBC even bothered to notice that McCarthy had just been caught in an outright public lie. That’s the morass in which American politics wallows now, especially in the national capital.

Outside the Washington Beltway, however, there are some flickering signs that in an election year where Democratic congressional gains do not now seem likely, some surprises might be lurking, well camouflaged by the welter of polling which foretells Democratic defeat.

First of all, there is the faltering credibility of the polls themselves. Virtually all of the national polls either predicted outcomes that did not materialize in recent presidential elections or missed significant trends and swings in voter preferences. Biden might even take heart from the unanimity of pollster reporting that his ratings are sagging and possibly terminally mired in a mess of inflation and ill-conceived policy decisions. Given the polls’ dismal recent record of inaccuracy, he could be forgiven for taking some comfort from their findings.

But more significantly, there is evidence that Trump himself may be contributing to divisions in the GOP that could weaken the eventual Republican nominees this November. Still unwilling and probably unable to step back into obscurity and even irrelevance after 40 years as a celebrity, Trump has been travelling outside Florida to give grievance-filled speeches to crowds in areas deemed sufficiently passionate in their continuing support for him. This closely follows a practice instituted when he travelled outside Washington, DC, as president.

He makes no secret that he enjoys the persistent, sometimes desperate attempts by Republican candidates from all over the country to secure the Trump Endorsement for their election bids. In three states that figure to be significant in determining the future balance of power in Washington and elsewhere, Trump’s picks that favour celebrities have been at the very least controversial. At most, they may prove to be destructively divisive.

In Georgia, 2020’s unexpected national bellwether state, Trump has recruited former US senator David Perdue, who lost one of Georgia’s Republican Senate seats that year, to run in the GOP primary against a popular governor, Republican Brian Kemp. Kemp, who is certainly no liberal, has solid Republican credentials and by many accounts has done a good job as the state’s chief executive. His failure to suborn the constitutional election process and overturn a shocking but legitimate Biden win in Georgia has condemned Kemp to suffer Trump’s disfavour.

Waiting for the potentially wounded survivor of this May 24 GOP primary election is none other than one of America’s most accomplished political organizers, Democrat Stacey Abrams. If Kemp wins in the primary as expected and Trump continues to bad-mouth him, as is also expected, watch out. We could see a black female governor in Georgia.

Trump has also strongly influenced the US Senate candidacy of former football star Herschel Walker, who should win the primary in May and will oppose incumbent Rev. Raphael Warnock in November. The Republicans probably need to win this race to help recapture their Senate majority. But Walker’s main qualifications for office are his brilliance 45 years ago as a University of Georgia running back and Heisman Trophy winner, and his long friendship with Trump. Warnock and Abrams make a formidable team for the Democrats.

In Ohio, Trump has just endorsed Republican Senate candidate and author J D Vance, of “Hillbilly Elegy” fame. Vance’s 2016 bestseller offered a cogent explanation for the changing allegiance of poor working white voters from Democratic to Republican. In the process, he helped to clarify one of the reasons Trump won in 2016 and still counts poor and lower-income white voters as key elements of his “MAGA base”. In a contentious primary race, voters are constantly reminded that Vance called Trump an “idiot” prior to the 2016 election.

Vance will square off on Tuesday against a handful of other Republican Senate hopefuls, some of whom have accumulated endorsements from national figures as Texas senator Ted Cruz and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The state party has been divided by Trump’s surprise endorsement, and there are murmurs that if Vance wins the primary election, some party faithful will sit out November’s election. And if Vance loses, Trumpers may do the same. It all gives certain Democratic nominee Tim Ryan hope where he realistically had almost none just a month ago.

Then there’s Pennsylvania. Incumbent Republican Senator Pat Toomey is retiring. In another contentious and crowded GOP primary, Trump has just endorsed Dr Mehmet Oz. This Turkish-American physician, whose public medical advice career was nurtured by Oprah Winfrey among others and who owns a Palm Beach mansion like Trump, is a longtime TV star. Dr. Oz is opposed principally by hedge fund millionaire David McCormick, who like Oz had assiduously sought Trump’s endorsement for months.

This May 17 primary election, like the one in Ohio, may well leave lasting scars. Given the demographic predominance of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in the state and the Democratic Party’s traditional strength in those dominant cities, this seat should revert to the Democrats this year. Fratricidal disputes by their opponents can only help.