IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The Washington Post’s Amber Philips is out with a great look on how imperiled House Republicans (including Erik Paulsen) are coming up with epically nonsensical answers about whether or not they will vote for Trump. The DCCC released a memo last week titled “Damned if they do, Damned if they don’t,” which outlines how Republicans are stuck with Trump at the top-of-ticket in districts where Trump is not likely to perform well.
Key Section:
“My vote has to been earned, and it has not been earned,” Rep. Erik Paulsen (Minn.) told the Star Tribune after Trump made his “Second Amendment” comments recently. “I’ll just say that words matter.”
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Vulnerable House Republicans still have no good answers to Trump questions
Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/15/vulnerable-house-republicans-still-have-no-good-answers-to-trump-questions/
With less than 90 days before an election that looks increasingly challenging for Republicans at all levels, a number of House Republicans who are on the fence about whether to support Donald Trump still don’t seem to know what to say — or whom to vote for.
A handful of Republicans in competitive reelection races sound as if they’re holding out hope that their nominee will suddenly become a different one. But that’s wishful thinking. In fact, Trump himself has established that’s most definitely not going to happen:
[…] The general election season is roughly halfway over. And yet there are Republican House lawmakers across the country — most of them facing those competitive reelection races — still trying to find a way to talk about Trump:
[…] “My vote has to been earned, and it has not been earned,” Rep. Erik Paulsen (Minn.) told the Star Tribune after Trump made his “Second Amendment” comments recently. “I’ll just say that words matter.”
Their struggles with Trump less than three months before the election mirror the struggles that Senate Republicans had with him the spring, when it became clear that Trump had a real shot at winning the nomination. It appears that time — and Trump’s nomination — hasn’t made the challenge any easier.
[…] His standing in the polls, especially in the all-important battleground states, is collapsing. And his penchant for controversy feels like it’s picked up since he won the nomination, rather than calming down. Since House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) endorsed Trump in early June, he’s had to denounce something Trump says roughly once a week.
Things have gotten so bad that as top Republican congressional leaders hint that they could lose in November, they’re sending a not-so-subtle message to their donors that they’ll need more help staying afloat in a potential Democratic wave election. We could soon see a world where the Republican Party cuts Trump off from their resources and spends it to try to save candidates like the House lawmakers in this story instead.
And yet Republicans sharing the ballot with Trump have to be careful not to entirely alienate him — or his supporters. Some 68 percent of Republican voters have a favorable view of Trump, and 83 percent said they plan to vote for him in November, according to an August Washington Post-ABC News poll. (However, Trump is less popular among Republicans than Clinton is among Democrats. She has an 87 percent approval rating among Democrats, and 92 percent say they’ll vote for her.)
[…] There’s no question Trump is continuing down the path he’s on. But it is still very much a question what vulnerable House Republicans are going to do about it.