Republicans in 2016: In the line of fire
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 Date: November 8, 2016 |
Winner: Donald Trump (R) Hillary Clinton (D) • Jill Stein (G) • Gary Johnson (L) • Vice presidential candidates |
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This article covering the 2016 presidential election was written outside the scope of Ballotpedia's encyclopedic coverage and does not fall under our neutrality policy or style guidelines. It is preserved as it was originally written. For our encyclopedic coverage of the 2016 election, click here.
July 19, 2016
By Rich Cohen
Note: This is a five-part series in which Rich Cohen examines the Republican nominee, the party, the convention, and the campaign. He will write a similar series for next week's Democratic convention.
When presidential candidates are battling with each other, down-ballot incumbents often keep their heads down and try to avoid the line of fire. As shown by a contentious conflict at the Republican convention, problems can result even when the candidates belong to the same party and the contest was resolved months ago.
Proving the ancient adage that “All politics is local,” Ohio Sen. Rob Portman has been trying to avoid becoming collateral damage, as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort has criticized Ohio Gov. John Kasich as “petulant” for his refusal to endorse Trump at the convention.
Kasich was the last Republican to drop out of the presidential primary this spring, clearing the way for Trump. Now, the governor is in the awkward position of being the skunk at the GOP’s national garden party that is hosted by his home state.
But fellow Republican Portman has his own problem, with a close re-election contest against Ted Strickland. Not coincidentally, Strickland lost his bid for a second term as governor to Kasich in 2010. Now, as the Democratic Senate challenger, he has praised Kasich’s independence in not endorsing Trump. And he has cleverly suggested that Portman should follow a similar course.
Portman earlier endorsed Trump. But, like many other congressional Republicans this year, he has been struggling to find the right balance that will alienate the fewest voters in November—somewhere between party loyalty and a studied independence. According to the Columbus Dispatch, Portman on Monday rejected Manafort’s comment to reporters that the senator was “very upset with John Kasich” for causing him re-election problems.
Portman is hardly the only congressional Republican to face a Trump dilemma. Also on Monday, Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon—who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee—offered a faint defense when asked about the potentially adverse Trump impact during a convention event hosted yesterday by The Atlantic.
In most of the competitive contests for House seats, Walden said, “Hillary Clinton is as unpopular … as Donald Trump.” In other words, the head of the House GOP campaign operation seemed to advise his candidates to distance themselves from defending their party’s nominee—or even referring to him.
For Republicans seeking to preserve their congressional majorities, the challenge of finding a delicate balance with Trump is more than academic. In the Senate, in particular, their 54-seat majority is at severe risk. Democrats will need to gain five seats to regain the control that they lost in 2014. The stakes are especially high with the Senate facing the challenge of confirming a presidential nomination to fill at least one Supreme Court vacancy in the next four years. Seven GOP-held seats are rated as toss-ups, according to the latest version of the authoritative Cook Political Report, compared to only one Democratic seat. An eighth Senate Republican is rated as “lean,” and GOP campaign strategists are keeping a close eye on four others.
Not coincidentally, most of those endangered incumbents this week have remained in their home states and far away from the convention in Ohio—an option not available to Portman. Adding to the Senate Republicans’ challenge, many of those seats are in states that are presidential battlegrounds or where Trump is the underdog to Hillary Clinton.
In the House, Republicans have a more comfortable majority: 247 seats to 187 for Democrats, and a vacancy in a safe Democratic seat. Election pundits have said that Democrats face an uphill challenge in reversing the GOP’s 30-seat control, not least with the advantages of redistricting and incumbency. Democrats also have suffered some missed opportunities in failing to recruit credible contenders for potentially vulnerable seats. Most of the four dozen House seats that are open because of retirements are comfortably safe for the party of the departing incumbent.
- See also: U.S. House battlegrounds, 2016
Still, campaign experts in both parties are mindful of the possibility that Election Day problems for Trump could create unexpected Democratic prospects. The Cook Report currently lists 33 Republican-held seats as toss-up, “lean,” or at greater risk. Only four Democratic-held seats are in comparable categories. Likewise, Ballotpedia’s listings show that the vulnerable seats are disproportionately held by Republicans.
- See also: United States Congress elections, 2016
Walden, who accentuates the positive, continues to voice confidence that Republicans will lose no more than a handful of their current House seats. “I think our House races, from what we’re seeing, are independent of the presidential, for the most part,” he told the Atlantic event.
Congressional Republicans, including Portman, are struggling to keep it that way.
Richard E. Cohen is a senior editor at Ballotpedia and a veteran congressional reporter. Among the books that he has written, he is chief author of The 2016 Almanac of American Politics.
See also
- Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016
- Republican National Committee
- Republican National Convention, 2016
