Blame Game: GOP Candidates Panic Due to Trump’s Unpopularity

With about seven weeks until election day on November 6th, Republicans are in full panic mode. Almost every recent poll shows the president’s unpopularity falling to record low levels, while at the same time congressional generic ballots show Republicans facing a bloodbath in the midterms.

Almost every GOP leader, pollster or candidate has expressed fears that as voters head to the polls in November they will not be thinking about what a great job Congress has done in creating a strong economy or reducing taxes. And they blame Donald Trump for this.

Republicans believe they will lose control of Congress because of the perceived chaos that Trump creates with his public statements, especially with his Twitter account.

According to the New York Times, “tensions are rising between the White House and congressional Republicans” over the upcoming midterms.

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The White House is blaming what is expected to be a Blue Wave victory for Democrats on GOP retirements and bad candidates who have not been successful in raising enough money to win their contests.

But Republicans leaders are pointing fingers at the president and saying that if they suffer major midterm losses it will be because of him.

What angers Republicans more than anything is their belief that they can’t run on the strong economic news because it is buried every day by Trump’s outbursts on Twitter. For example, over a three day period last week Trump posted eight tweets denying the official death toll in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria.

Trump’s ability to dominate the news is not seen as an advantage for Republicans. Especially because most of what has happened in recent weeks and months has made Trump less popular, and has made American voters view his presidency in a less favorable light.

GOP Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said:

“This is very much a referendum on the president. If we had to fight this campaign on what we accomplished in Congress and on the state of the economy, I think we’d almost certainly keep our majority.”

Most other Republicans feel the same way as Cole. According to Glen Bolger, a top GOP pollster, Trump is his biggest problem. He said:

“People think the economy is doing well, but that’s not what they’re voting on — they’re voting on the chaos of the guy in the White House. And this means that Republicans will likely lose the House.”

According to the article in the Times:

“Republican strategists say Mr. Trump is alienating a sizable bloc of moderate and Republican-leaning voters who favor right-of-center economic policies but recoil from the president.”

James Carville, the Democratic strategist, said Trump will have no one but himself to blame if his party loses control of the House — and possibly the Senate — in November.

“He won’t allow himself to get credit for the economy,” Carville explained. “He’s made himself bigger than the economy. Every conversation starts and ends with Trump.”

This is the problem with having a narcissist with a huge ego sitting in the Oval Office. Everything is about him, even the death toll after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Instead of dealing with the nation’s real issues and problems that must be solved, he’ll spend an entire day and night sending tweets after he receives some imaginary slight from some famous person or after watching a story on Fox News which inflames him.

Republicans may be angry at Donald Trump, but they have only themselves to blame.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.