The Republicans Are Bolting From The Felon

Numerous reports suggest that the Felon lives in an information bubble surrounded by sycophants only too happy to tell him what he wants to hear and to support his narcissism induced fantasies.  While many suspect he has an awareness to his horrible poll numbers - he calls them "fake" - he continues to push topics increasingly toxic with voters, including his war of choice with Iran, and does nothing to lower consumer prices even as survey after survey shows that affordability is the number one issue with voters. Indeed, Republicans are finding that whipping their voters into a frenzy over the transgender is a tough sell when constituents are paying over $100 to fill their cars' gas tanks.  With more and more prognosticators moving both House and Senate races away from Republicans, some Republicans are finally - and hopefully too late to save themselves - moving away from the Felon and in some instances scrubbing his name from their campaign websites.  A piece at The Atlantic looks at the GOP flight:

A few tentative displays of independence among Republicans have expanded in recent days into a stampede, as candidates furiously distance themselves from [the Felon] President Trump ahead of the midterm elections. “This is shaping up to be a nightmare political environment for every Republican, everywhere—period, full stop,” one Texas-based political consultant told us, speaking anonymously to provide a frank assessment. Noting that gas prices across the country are on average $4.50 a gallon, the consultant described the atmosphere as “a fucking disaster for anyone in a competitive race.”

The contrast with the midterm elections of Trump’s first term is particularly stark. An October 2018 rally in Richmond, Kentucky, was a political show of force by a president whose hold on the Republican Party was as firm as bedrock. . . . . Kentucky Republicans have been fawning over Trump for the past decade. But now, as the war with Iran drags on and Trump’s approval ratings crater, even they are starting to keep the president at a distance. Barr, who is running for an open Senate seat, and Alvarado, who is running to replace him in the House, have each recently scrubbed mentions of Trump’s name from prominent portions of their campaign websites. Paul has been more vocal, repeatedly clashing with the White House over the Iran war and the ballooning national debt.

The notably lukewarm embrace of Trump from Republican candidates in Kentucky, a state that he won by more than 30 points in 2024, is just one indicator of the president’s loosening grip on a party he has dominated for the past decade.

Republican candidates seeking a reason to distance themselves from an unpopular president have a buffet of options to choose from. The war in Iran, which began almost seven months ago, has sent diesel prices to record highs. The United States is in an escalating trade war with Canada. The national debt, the elimination of which was once an obsession of conservatives, has ballooned to more than $40 trillion—and that’s before the $5,000 government checks Trump has promised to dole out if Republicans win. Inflation and interest rates, which Trump pledged to bring down, remain elevated. Gas and food are more expensive than they were a year ago, and mortgage rates passed 7 percent yesterday.

The [Felon's] president’s approval ratings on these and other issues are abysmal. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday found that his approval rating has dipped to 32 percent—the lowest that pollster has measured at any point in his political career. Only 17 percent of respondents said they approved of the president’s handling of the cost of living. Barring a major change in the Iran war or the price of diesel, his numbers aren’t likely to change substantially, the Texas-based Republican consultant said. Members of his party were hoping the dynamic would improve, but it hasn’t . . . .

The list of Republican candidates publicly noting their differences with Trump keeps growing. Many are in states where polls show tighter-than-expected races for the GOP. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas spoke out this month about Trump’s calls to ban the sale of jets from the Canadian company Bombardier, whose U.S. headquarters are in Wichita. The Senate candidates Mike Rogers in Michigan, Ashley Hinson in Iowa, and Jon Husted in Ohio have each called for a swift end to the war in Iran . . . .

Even in Trump’s adopted state of Florida, which he’s won three times, candidates are bailing. Representative Byron Donalds, who is running for governor, recently updated his campaign website to remove multiple references to Trump—including a photo with the president and a banner noting that he was “TRUMP-ENDORSED,” the Miami Herald reported Tuesday.

Even red-state Republicans who are not on the ballot are seeking daylight between themselves and the president. Senator John Curtis of Utah this week called for an investigation into Trump’s son Don Jr. over corruption allegations, including concerns about a luxurious, days-long party for his wedding that was funded by a Russian oligarch. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi on Wednesday took to the Senate floor to admonish the White House for giving “brutal” Chinese President Xi Jinping a “lavish welcome” to the U.S. this week.

“The midterms are going to be a fucking bloodbath, and we all know it and we all know why,” Representative Nancy Mace, a retiring South Carolina Republican, told us of the president she once enthusiastically supported.

Trump has demanded extreme loyalty. Stepping out of line was a rarity during the first year and a half of Trump’s second term, which began with a flurry of executive actions that left much of Washington shell-shocked. But Trump could demand fealty for only so long, Russell Riley, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, told us. “The cascading opposition to the president on multiple fronts now is important not just because of what it might represent for the midterm election, but more so because it reestablishes a kind of fixed point of orientation in the political universe again, . . .

Even as the evidence has mounted that Trump is dragging down his party, the president has highlighted the very positions that have made him unpopular. After it was already clear that public concern over data centers was endangering the campaigns of vulnerable Republicans such as Husted, Trump insulted communities that rejected the projects as places that wanted to end up “backwards and poor.” He has dismissed bipartisan efforts to rein in the dangers of AI, saying he wants technology companies to have freedom to develop what he has begun referring to as “super intelligence.” He has continued to defend the war in Iran—suggesting this week at the United Nations that he might annihilate the entire country—and minimized the economic cost Americans are shouldering as a result.

Trump has also repeatedly told voters to pretend that he was on the ballot. Democrats have been happy to oblige, mentioning the president in 66,000 airings of general-election ads since August 1, according to the political-ad tracking firm AdImpact.

Dozens of Republicans broke with Trump after the January 6 insurrection, only for many to return to the fold after he won office a second time. But for those who have been eager to see the party move on from Trump, the events of the past few weeks mark a potentially more durable shift. Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist and co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, told us he has been watching the MAGA movement for a decade, asking: “When is this fever swamp gonna finally break?” He thinks the moment is now. Candidates have begun making the calculation that Trump is more of a liability than an asset, and are de-emphasizing their relationship with him. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen that,” he said.