For a few months after Donald Trump clinched the nomination in May, it appeared as though his bizarre candidacy, his “gaffes” (hard to call them gaffes when they seem to comprise the entirety of the candidate’s message), and his astronomically high negative ratings were not affecting the Republican candidates vying for election and reelection to the Senate, on whose fate the GOP’s control of upper chamber hinges.
Republican candidates looked relatively good across the board, from Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, whom the NRSC considers the strongest candidate of the cycle, to Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, whom the NRSC believes is running the best campaign this year, to Rob Portman in Ohio, who is running consistently ahead of a weak Democratic opponent.
In early August, as Trump began to tank in the polls shortly after the GOP convention, many hoped it was a temporary downturn rather than the first indication of a slump so severe it could wipe out Republicans across the board.
No longer. The data-analytics website FiveThirtyEight notes that six of the eight GOP Senate candidates are polling worse now than they were before they convention:
…while Republican Senate candidates had been up by an average of a little more than 1 percentage point before the conventions in these eight states, they are now down by a little more than 1 point. That is, Republican Senate candidates in key states are still running ahead of Trump, but that cushion may no longer be enough to win now that Trump’s fortunes have worsened.
Particularly affected are Ayotte in New Hampshire and Toomey in Pennsylvania, whose fortunes have taken a turn for the worse alongside Trump’s. There aremany other competitive races on the map but these two in particular appear to have been particularly affected by Trump’s disastrous performance over the past month: Ayotte led in most polls before the convention but, as FiveThirtyEight notes but has trailed in every post-convention poll; similarly, Toomey had led in most pre-convention polls but has trailed in four of the five released since the convention.
This is true even though both Ayotte and Toomey have made their distaste for Trump clear. Ayotte has said she will vote for Trump despite her misgivings about him; Toomey, who backed Rubio for president, has not endorsed Trump and refuses to be seen with him in Pennsylvania. But Trump is down 10 points in the state, and it’s now clear that deficit sufficiently large that it’s hurting Toomey, too.
Republicans face uphill battles in Wisconsin and Illinois, and if they lose in those states as well as in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, Democrats would have the four seats they need to retake the Senate majority assuming that Clinton defeats Trump and Kaine serves as the tie-breaking vote.
EDITOR’s NOTE: This has been updated since its initial posting.