While I remain optimistic about our chances of winning the House and our odds of winning the U.S. Senate in November, The Guardian offers this cautionary message:
Donald Trump’s approval rating is rising, the economy is robust and there has been an apparent foreign policy breakthrough with North Korea. After losses in Virginia, Alabama and Pennsylvania, Republican confidence is up. While Democrats consistently lead in polls of the generic ballot, there is a sense, in the words of Republican strategist John Brabender, that “things are better today than 60 days ago”.
Trump is still unpopular. But while that may be a negative in competitive House districts where the president lost or performed worse than past Republican presidential candidates, he is a key asset in deep red states where incumbent Democrats will be on the ballot.
Brabender pointed out that even in the Pennsylvania special election, in which Conor Lamb upset Rick Saccone in a deep red district, a visit by Trump helped keep the race close.
“It’s not a matter of do you use the president or not,” said Brabender. “You have to use him tactically in places where he has a greater impact coming in.”
This was put on display on Thursday night in Elkhart, Indiana, as Trump held a rally in a vast high school gymnasium in front of a crowd of thousands. Although he went on his trademark diversions – discussing former basketball coach Bobby Knight and the new US embassy in London – the president also attacked the Democratic senator Joe Donnelly and praised his Republican opponent, Mike Braun.
Although Trump veered off message – calling Donnelly “Sleeping Joe” when Republicans have gone to great lengths to brand him as “Mexico Joe” – it was a small price to pay. The party can now cut television ads featuring Trump touting Braun. In 2016, Trump won Indiana by almost 20%.
This isn’t anything new. Republicans, feel in some races, Trump will be an asset while in other races they are trying to sell Trump without Trump. In the Indiana Senate race, Donnelly is choosing not to make Trump the focus but rather Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. KY) on health care and the GOP tax scam. But defeating Donnelly may not be as easy they think:
Even his potential opponents acknowledged how hard it would be to defeat him. At a campaign stop last weekend before his loss in the primary to Braun, Rep. Todd Rokita said, “If you know Joe Donnelly, you know he’s better than Evan Bayh in a lot of ways,” referring to the state’s Democratic former senator who lost a comeback bid in 2016. “He’s very retail in what he does, and I mean that in the best way.”
Braun won the primary with the help of millions of dollars worth of television ads boosting his name recognition. He paid for those ads with his own money — something he reportedly said he wouldn’t do in the general election.
In an interview before his primary victory, he seemed confident his momentum would continue into November. He contrasted his success building up Meyer Distributing, his warehouse distribution business, with what he said was Donnelly’s failed legal career and ineffective time in politics.
“He’s got a voting record that matches up pretty well with [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer,” he said. “I don’t think we send the cream of the crop to D.C.”
Braun has a simpler job: He just needs to keep pro-Trump voters in his corner.
“His record is going to be easy to flush out,” Braun said in his victory speech on Tuesday night, citing Donnelly’s votes against the tax bill and for maintaining Obamacare. “I intend to be the person to send Joe Donnelly to an early retirement.”
Republicans and Democrats agree there are two large groups of swing voters in the state: union workers who make up Donnelly’s base but voted for Trump in 2016 and college-educated suburban voters, mostly women, in the so-called doughnut counties surrounding Indianapolis.
Union leaders are confident Donnelly’s history of opposing free trade deals and outsourcing will keep voters in his camp in 2018. Jerome Davison, the rapid response coordinator for the United Steelworkers District 7, noted that Trump won 40 percent of the vote in deep blue northwestern Indiana, even as Democratic Rep. Pete Visclosky won re-election with 82 percent of the vote.
“It’s a lot about the individual, not the party,” he said of union members’ voting decisions. “They know Sen. Donnelly’s record on trade issues, on working-families issues.”
But Republicans see an opportunity to undercut his image by attacking him for owning stock in a family business that outsourced jobs to Mexico. Donnelly sold the stock, but that hasn’t stopped the GOP from dubbing him “Mexico Joe” and the National Republican Senatorial Committee from sending a mariachi band to one of his campaign events. Republicans hope the attacks can undercut the core of Donnelly’s public image.
Democrats will attempt to fire back by highlighting Braun’s business record, citing an Associated Press report that found his companies “do brisk business importing goods from the same overseas countries he has criticized for taking American jobs” and said federal records “present a picture of a boss who has overworked and underpaid employees.”
He defended his business record, saying Democratic opposition researchers “cherry-picked” from a long career.
“I think they found three instances from 37 years,” he said. “If we had those kinds of problems, we wouldn’t have high retention rates. And we did.”
Some Republicans are worried that his embrace of Trump — Braun called himself a humbler version of the New York real estate magnate and ran ads promising to build Trump’s promised border wall and follow the president’s agenda — could alienate voters in the suburbs. Trump won just 56 percent of the vote in Hamilton County, a GOP stronghold where George W. Bush claimed nearly three-quarters of the vote in his two presidential bids.
Donnelly’s other key voting that will determine his re-election bid are veterans:
Perhaps his strongest voter base, veterans at the Indianapolis event felt he was well-known among vets.
"I don't think anybody represents us any better," said State Commander Rick Faulk, while introducing Donnelly. VFW leaders told IndyStar they're willing to host pro-veteran politicians from either party who inquire.
Donnelly has focused on agriculture, national defense and veterans’ issues, which one expert previously said could help him with blue-collar voters who flocked to Donald Trump last year. Donnelly reminded the crowd he helped instate a memorial day for Vietnam veterans — March 29. Donnelly's father was in the Navy, and his uncle was in the Army.
"There's no politics in this stuff," Donnelly said. "And there should never be ... I'm the hired help. You are the boss."
As far as new legislation for veterans, Donnelly said he was working on a suicide prevention bill that would create a three-digit number helpline that veterans can call to immediately reach a person.
Donnelly has to walk a tight line in his state, that’s for sure. While I can’t say I approve of his record in the Senate when it comes to Trump, I do applaud him for standing strong on health care, net neutrality, and taxes. Republicans are feeling cocky that because Trump won normal red states by double digits, there are still some real cracks and flaws in just relying on Trump to pull Republicans to the finish line. His track record, right now, proves the exact opposite. Just ask Ed Gilespie, Rick Saccone, Luther Strange and Roy Moore. But this is a strong, sober reminder that we can't take anything for granted and we have to be ready for whatever the GOP throws our way. Let's be sure to do that in the Hoosier state. Click here to donate and get involved with Donnelly's campaign.