http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/clinton-dems-senate-223468 GOP: Clinton could cost Democrats in battle for Senate
With all the focus on Donald Trump, Republicans believe Hillary's high negatives are being overlooked.
By Burgess Everett
05/24/16 05:24 AM EDT
Ask a vulnerable Republican senator on the ballot this fall about Donald Trump, and chances are you’ll get an uncomfortable pause, or perhaps some mild criticism paired with a promise to “support the nominee.”
Ask about Hillary Clinton, though, and the straitjacket vanishes.
“Hillary Clinton is definitely going to be a major problem for Katie McGinty,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who has left the door open to abandoning Trump, said of his Democratic foe. “They’re in lockstep, in unison on everything.”
With all the talk of Trump potentially dragging down Republicans and costing the GOP the Senate majority, Republicans say everyone’s overlooking the damage that Clinton — whose high unfavorables rival Trump’s, according to a slate of recent polls — could do to down-ballot Democrats. Republicans believe voters will chafe at candidates aligned with the former secretary of state, and they’re laying the groundwork to make Clinton’s high negatives a centerpiece of their strategy to defend their narrow 54-seat majority in purple and blue states.
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