Mitch McConnell waited too long to distance himself from Trump — and now it will cost him: report
According to a report from USA Today, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and fellow Republican senators waited too long to put some distance between themselves and unpopular President Donald Trump and that will likely cost McConnell his power and GOP control of the Senate.
With the election a little more than two weeks away and Trump appearing to be heading to defeat, members of the Republican Party have begun to openly suggest they are facing a "bloodbath" on November 3rd. According to the USA Today report, conservatives lawmakers have only themselves to blame for the coming debacle.
According to Jessica Taylor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, "It just shows that these senators are pulled in two different directions. They can't irritate the very conservative Trump base but they also need independents to win the general election. It's a no-win situation for them in many regards."
The report notes that McConnell is pushing through the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett and scheduling a vote of COVID-19 relief this coming week in an effort to give GOP candidates something to brag about while avoiding mention of the president.
"McConnell, known for bringing home the political bacon to Kentucky, looked to give GOP colleagues a way out when he announced the Senate's schedule was shifting," the report stated.
"As a general rule, presidential candidates have coattails that help down-ballot candidates of their own party because they help expand the participation of like-minded voters. But that wasn't the case in 2016 with Trump," the report continued. "Four years ago, a number of senators publicly disavowed Trump, many of them breaking with him over the Hollywood Access tape in which the then-reality show star Trump was caught on a hot mic bragging about groping women."
This go-around it appears that Republican Senators from North Carolina, Maine, Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona and Georgia could be out of a job after election day because they failed to disavow the president — thereby handing control of the Senate to the Democrats.
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