Senate GOP wants Trump to stay away from 2024 races as his legal woes mount

Posted on April 10, 2023 (Updated April 10, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Senate Republicans, including members of leadership and even Trump allies, say former President Trump should stay out of the 2024 Senate primaries, hoping to avoid a repeat of last year’s disappointing midterm elections.

They view Trump as becoming more of a political liability in next year’s Senate races as his legal problems mount.

The Manhattan district attorney charged the former president Tuesday with 34 felony counts related to payments to two women, and he could face additional charges from federal prosecutors and Georgia's Fulton County district attorney.

GOP lawmakers and strategists fear Trump will mire GOP candidates in debates over his pet issues such as election fraud and defunding the Department of Justice instead of issues that more voters care about, such as the economy, inflation and health care.

And they worry that Trump’s endorsements again will be more driven by how he perceives candidates’ loyalty to him and his agenda than on their electability in November.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), who has stood in for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) while he recuperates from a concussion, said it would be better if Trump stays out of the way.

“Sure seems like that would be helpful based on our lack of success in 2022,” he said.

Even Trump’s strongest allies would like to see next year’s Senate races play out without Trump’s thumb on the scale.

“If I were him, I’d focus on his own election, but I doubt if he’ll take that advice,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Trump announced his presidential campaign in November.

He had a mixed record supporting gubernatorial, Senate and House candidates last year.

He had a losing record in the six states where his super PAC spent money on behalf of Republican candidates gubernatorial and Senate races in Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

He compiled a 1-6 record in those states, where only Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), whom Trump endorsed in the primary, won.

And the candidates Trump endorsed in the five most competitive House races lost.

Many Senate Republicans think Trump hurt Republicans’ chances in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania by endorsing candidates whom Republicans in Washington did not view as the candidates with the best chances of winning the general election.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict Trump on impeachment charges, said the consensus in the Senate Republican conference is that Trump would do more harm than good if he tries to play kingmaker in next year’s primaries.

“I hope he stays out because him getting involved last time led to us losing key Senate races we could have won,” he said. “I think it’s viewed [that way] by almost every single member of the caucus, if not all of them, but I think few will say it because they don’t want to get the wrath of Donald Trump.”

Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist and former Senate leadership aide, said Trump didn’t have a good record picking winners in last year’s toughest races.

“Trump has a very poor track record of backing top-tier candidates that can get elected to the Senate. It’s no wonder that Senate Republicans want Trump to stay away from the primaries as much as possible because he’s been radioactive in the general elections.”

Some Senate Republicans thought Trump dragged down candidates in the general election by making it tougher for them to appeal to moderate and swing voters.

Retired Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who twice won election statewide in Pennsylvania, blamed Trump for the loss of his seat.

“President Trump had to insert himself and that changed the nature of the race and that created just too much of an obstacle,” Toomey told CNN in November, explaining why he thought celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, whom Trump backed in the primary, lost to now-Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).

Toomey was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that he lost the 2020 presidential election because of widespread fraud became a litmus test in some Senate Republican primaries and came back to haunt those candidates who embraced those claims in the general election.

In New Hampshire, where at the start of the 2022 election cycle Republicans thought they had a good chance of knocking off vulnerable Sen. Maggie Hassan (D), Republican candidate Don Bolduc won the primary after embracing Trump’s election fraud claims. That turned out to be a liability in the general election, and Bolduc tried to back away from that stance after winning the primary, telling Fox News in September that he concluded after doing research on the matter that the election was not stolen. He wound up losing to Hassan by 9 points.

Mark Weaver, a Republican strategist based in Ohio, where Republicans are hoping to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) next year, said Trump’s endorsement is a liability for GOP candidates in a general election.

“In the general election, a Trump endorsement is always going to hurt because he will always be a red cape to the Democratic bull, and I don’t see independents growing any fonder of Donald Trump,” he said, referring to the energizing effect Trump has on Democratic voters.

Some Republican strategists outside the Beltway, however, see Trump as an asset for Republican candidates in battleground states such as Ohio.

Mehek Cooke, a Republican strategist and attorney based in Columbus, Ohio, said Trump’s endorsement is “a very net positive” in a general election.

“I think there’s a lot of support for President Trump in the state of Ohio,” she said. “If the Senate Republicans in Washington really want to win against Sherrod Brown, they’re going to come together and work with Trump or any other candidate, rather than continuing the division we see in our country."

Trump carried Ohio in 2016 and 2020 with 51 percent and 53 percent of the vote, respectively.

Now, Trump is dividing Republicans over another controversy: his call to defund the Department of Justice and FBI in response to federal investigations of his role in the incitement of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

A Senate Republican aide told The Hill that idea won’t get any significant traction in the Senate GOP conference, while House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says Congress should use its power of the purse to push back on federal investigations of Trump.

Jordan on Thursday subpoenaed Mark Pomerantz, who formerly worked in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, citing Congress’s interest “in preventing politically motivated prosecutions of current and former presidents by elected state and local prosecutors.”

Bonjean, the GOP strategist and former leadership aide, said that Trump shifts the debate in Senate races away from the topics that GOP leaders want to emphasize: inflation, gas prices, crime, the border and federal spending.

“When Trump injects himself into these primaries, then our candidates have to talk about Jan. 6, Stormy Daniels, stolen elections and those are not matters that Main Street voters really want to hear about,” he said.

“They want to know how you’re going to solve their problems and if you’re actually relatable as a politician, as an elected official, and those issues aren’t very relatable to general election voters,” he added.

McConnell’s hospitalization raises questions for GOP’s future

Posted on March 10, 2023 (Updated March 10, 2023) by Alexander Bolton

Senate Republicans found themselves shaken and disoriented Thursday after finding out their leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) was in the hospital after tripping at a private event, raising questions about his health and future leadership of the GOP conference.

McConnell, who in January became the longest serving party leader in Senate history, has led the Senate GOP conference since 2005 and has helped guide his colleagues through some of the biggest moments in recent history — the 2008 financial collapse, the near default of the U.S. government in 2011, the fiscal cliff of 2012, the two impeachment trials of former President Trump and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

McConnell fell after attending a private dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington and was taken to the hospital by an ambulance and is being treated for a concussion.

The 81-year-old Kentucky senator’s sudden absence came only a day after he helped Republicans achieve a big political victory by stampeding Democrats into voting to block a District of Columbia crime bill. And it left some GOP senators feeling unsettled and worried about the future.

“I am a huge fan of Mitch McConnell. I think he has the ability to lead a very diverse group of individuals in a way that is masterful,” said one GOP senator who requested anonymity to discuss the impact of McConnell’s injury on the Senate GOP conference.

“I think, who would be our next leader and what kind of leader would that person be?” the senator added. “Yeah, I do worry about that.”

“He’s always thinking ahead in terms of initiatives. He’s thinking about how the players on his team can fit. He’s got a knack for that that I don’t think you find in many others,” the lawmaker said.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.), former Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn (Texas) and Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.) are viewed as McConnell’s three most likely successors.

But there hasn’t been any serious discussion of a future Senate GOP leadership race among Republican senators themselves because McConnell has a secure grip on the job and hasn’t dropped any hint about planning to retire.

He easily defeated former National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (Fla.) by a lopsided vote of 37 to 10 when Scott tried to capitalize on Republican disappointment over the 2022 midterm election by challenging McConnell for the top job.

Scott, who has feuded with McConnell over party strategy since that race, tweeted on Thursday that he and his wife are keeping the leader and his family “in our prayers” and wished him “a speedy recovery.”

Senators were in the dark

The news that broke Wednesday night that McConnell had been rushed to the hospital after tripping and falling at a dinner event left Republican senators scrambling the next morning for more information about the severity of his injuries.

Speculation veered in all different directions, and the lack of details from McConnell’s office had lawmakers wondering about how bad the situation was.

McConnell’s top deputies, Thune and Cornyn, didn’t get a chance to talk to their leader before being pressed for details by reporters in the Capitol’s hallways.

Thune, looking somber Thursday morning, only said: “Don’t know a lot yet.”

Thune rushed straight to the floor before taking any other questions to be sure he first addressed his Senate colleagues, telling them that his “thoughts and prayers are with Leader McConnell” as well as “with his family” and “with his team.”

Cornyn was also in the dark.

“I understand that he’s resting up, but I don’t have any details,” he said.

McConnell’s office disclosed at lunchtime Thursday that he was being treated for a concussion and would remain in the hospital for a few days of observation and treatment.

What exactly happened

As the day went on, a few other details leaked out about the accident.

McConnell was at the Waldorf earlier in the evening to attend a reception for the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC that he is affiliated with and that played a major role in the last election by spending $290 million.

The reception was a thank-you event for the super PAC’s supporters, and several GOP senators attended.

“I think it was more of a thank you to the people that had helped with the fund in the last election cycle,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “It was a pretty good showing of Republican colleagues. I don’t know how many showed up, but it seemed like there was a lot of us.”

McConnell later attended a small, private dinner that a person familiar described as “adjacent” to the reception. He tripped and fell after that dinner.

McConnell's significant impact

A second Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic said McConnell’s hospitalization raises questions about the future leadership of the Senate GOP conference but emphasized, “It’s not time to be talking about [it].”

“My thoughts and prayers are with Elaine and Mitch, and I hope it’s not too serious,” the senator said, referring to McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

“I haven’t found anything good about getting old,” the senator quipped.

McConnell has been such a major political force in Republican politics for so long that his GOP colleagues have come to rely on his ability to pump huge sums of money into Senate battleground states and to insulate them from the turbulence in conservative politics that has roiled the House GOP conference.

He leadership is especially valued by mainstream and moderate Republicans such as Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) — one of McConnell’s closest friends in the Senate — because he gives them space to work with Democratic colleagues and practice the style of Republican politics they see as best suited to their home states.

Colleagues also value McConnell’s ability to get their party out of tough political situations.

One example came in the fall of 2021, when he rounded up his leadership team and other allies to provide the 11 GOP votes needed to pave the way for Democrats to pass legislation to raise the debt limit.

McConnell took enormous heat from Trump and other critics for the vote, but it took the danger of a federal default off the table.

And McConnell has historically shown a willingness to inject himself in Senate Republican primary politics to pave the way for candidates he views as the most electable in a general election — an approach he adopted after Republicans fumbled away their chances to win seats in Delaware, Nevada, Missouri and Indiana in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Even senators who voted to oust him from his leadership job in November admit their respect and admiration for his toughness in battle.

“He’s a tough old crow. My money’s on him,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Trump ‘acquitted forever,’ says Kellyanne Conway

Posted on February 5, 2020 by PBS NewsHour - Politics

President Trump was acquitted Thursday of both impeachment charges brought to the Senate by the House. The vote was along party lines, with the exception of Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who sided with Democrats and considered Trump guilty of abuse of power. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss her "delight" at the outcome and Trump's State of the Union address.