WASHINGTON — Republican senators are increasingly voicing fears that President Donald Trump could lose the election, and some are openly fretting that he’ll turn the party's candidates into electoral roadkill, distancing themselves from him to an unusual extent.
A weekend of agonizing from Republicans did not yield any perceivable course correction from Trump as he continued his inflammatory rhetoric on the campaign trail and directed some of his fire right back at anxious GOP senators on Twitter.
Pointed warnings of electoral defeat have come in recent days from Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. All are former Trump critics turned allies who reliably vote with the president.
“I’m worried that if President Trump loses — as looks likely — that he’s going to take the Senate down with him,” Sasse said in a conference call with constituents last week, according to a recording first reported on Thursday by the Washington Examiner. “I’m now looking at the possibility of a Republican bloodbath in the Senate.”
The elevated fears come as Democrat Joe Biden leads Trump by more than 9 points in the NBC News national polling average, and as some forecasters say Democrats are likely to secure control of Congress. The grim GOP outlook follows Trump’s widely criticized debate showing, hospitalization for Covid and a failure to secure an economic stimulus package.
“I hope that they're having a moment of moral clarity. I think they're realizing that the Trump show is almost over,” said Olivia Troye, a former homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence who served on the White House coronavirus task force. “They have ridden the Trump wave long enough. But I think it's no longer helpful to do that for them.”
Troye, a longtime Republican, says she plans to vote for Biden and Democrats down the ballot this fall. “There needs to be a significant change,” she said, and insisted that Sasse represents the misgivings of many
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