Trump travails threaten GOP control of the Senate
by W. James Antle III, Politics Editor |
| June 15, 2020 12:00 AM
President Trump’s recent polling slump has given Democrats hope that they can retake not only the White House but also the Senate in November.
Republicans are defending 21 Senate seats this year, including two of the three seats considered most likely to change parties and all three rated by most political analysts as toss-ups. Democrats are only defending 12 seats. That may not even demonstrate the full extent of the GOP’s vulnerability if Trump’s numbers don’t recover. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority, counting two independents who caucus with Senate Democrats.
“There are two things about the political climate that threaten GOP Senate incumbents,†said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “A new Gallup poll has the president's job rating at 39%, which is dangerously low and currently not high enough to support a Republican majority. A new survey by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News has 80% of the public thinking that things in this country are out of control, a figure that is dangerously high.â€
In fact, Trump’s job approval in Gallup is down 10 points in a month as the country endures civil unrest over police brutality faced by the black community in addition to the coronavirus and an economic slowdown. He is also trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in national and most battleground state polls. The president is behind by a margin of 8.1 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics nationwide polling average.
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