Former President Trump is increasing pressure on Senators Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), while Senate Republicans are on the verge of regaining the majority.
During Trump’s visit to Senate Republicans last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) urged the former president to do more to “hammer” the two Democratic incumbents from red states. The GOP only needs to defeat one, plus West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s (R) widely expected Senate victory in the fall, to recapture the upper chamber.
Trump appeared ready to comply.
“I think he was watching how all of a sudden they’ve become big Trump fans lately here in their respective states,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, said of the two Democrats expected to appeal to voters Republicans in their red states.
Members of the Republican Party, he said, want Trump to correct the record directly to voters.
But defeating Tester and Brown is not a simple task for the Republican Party, which has candidates Tim Sheehy and Bernie Moreno, respectively. Both incumbents are considered battle-tested lawmakers who endured tough re-election fights, including during a presidential year, and emerged on the other side.
But none of their combined Senate victories came with Trump at the top of the ticket, which Republicans believe will be a difficult mountain to overcome. Tester won Montana by just 3.5 points, while Trump defeated Biden there in 2020 by 16 points. Similarly in Ohio, Brown won his last reelection by about 7 points, while Trump won by 8 points in 2020.
Graham noted to the former president during Thursday’s meeting at the GOP Senate campaign headquarters that he is outperforming Sheehy and Moreno, along with the rest of the class of GOP Senate candidates who are facing a slew of incumbents. well financed.
“We realize that his success is our success,” Graham told reporters. “I said, ‘Mr. President, you are doing better than all the Republican Senate candidates in all the states that are important to us in terms of becoming the majority. We’re in this together.’”
“The path to a majority in the Senate is also the path to the White House,” he added.
Still, Democrats are quick to note that Trump has a lot on his plate in presidential battlegrounds, which means Montana and Ohio may not be his top priority. They also point to his lack of success in the Senate in recent cycles, with Republicans unable to gain a majority when he was on the ballot in 2020 or in 2022, when many of his personally ordained candidates lost general election fights.
“I don’t see Senator Herschel Walker [in office],” said a Democratic operative with experience in Senate races. “Moreno and Sheehy have a lot of vulnerabilities.”
Although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other top Republicans have repeatedly warned that unseating well-funded incumbents is no easy task, the GOP is increasingly optimistic that the party will be able to win over that additional seat, with Montana serving as the lead opportunity.
Tester has a distinct brand that has served him well in Big Sky country, but Republicans argue that what helped him win in 2018 will be working against him this go-round. Most Republicans argue that Sheehy is a stronger candidate than Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) was six years ago, and the environment this cycle will almost certainly be better for the GOP.
“I think Tester is as dead as it gets at this stage as a starter. I just don’t understand the math that brings him back,” a national GOP operative told The Hill, adding that Trump’s increased involvement there “is obviously helpful” and that “there’s no harm in it.”
Testers’ supporters dispute this claim.
“We do this every six years. Republicans say Jon Tester is weak and follow the same playbook,” said a Democratic strategist with ties to Montana. “I know how much they want Jon to be a weak starter, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a circular fantasy. They pay off every six years.
Meanwhile, in Ohio, the GOP’s national strategist argued that Democrats can “follow the Romney playbook” on Moreno, making “him look like an enemy of the working class.”
“There will be a significant amount of Trump/Brown voters. The question is: what can [Moreno] maintain this margin?” said the agent.
“The challenge remains: will Bernie Moreno be able to stand on his own two feet?” they added
A GOP operative connected to Moreno’s campaign rejected that characterization and noted that at this point in the last cycle, now Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) was down double digits to former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), and Moreno has only lost five, adding that Brown has previously been negative with his ads.
“Any intelligent agent knows that as statewide name identification equalizes in the fall, Sherrod Brown’s blind loyalty to Biden is exposed and momentum for Trump-aligned candidate Bernie Moreno’s campaign increases.” , continued the agent. “It will be difficult for Brown to hold on in November.”
Republicans are also quick to note that several of the ads Brown’s campaign has run so far are the types of ads they would consider running for a Republican candidate. The title of these are recent ads highlighting hollow car factoriesand affected workers and Brown’s work to mandate for US steel to be used for all infrastructure projects financed by the federal government.
An outside group linked to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) also has a recent ad releasedhighlighting the Interdiction Act, on which Brown worked with Trump to stop fentanyl and other drugs from entering the US. It is this type of message that is leading members to increasingly push Trump into these states.
“What our people were obviously interested in was just making sure that he clarified things and that people in those states understood who he was supporting and that there was no confusion,” Thune said. “There are a lot of allusions… in these campaigns to places where they now agree with Trump or are very suggestive that they are friends and work with him, etc.”
“The differences will likely become clear over time,” he added.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
