GOP hopefuls disown Donald Trump in swing states

Republicans in battleground states are distancing themselves from Donald Trump with signs the party’s grip on the Senate is at risk.

Senator Susan Collins, who is defending Maine against a well-funded Democratic challenger, has chided Donald Trump for his ‘very uneven’ handling of the pandemic. Picture: AFP

Republicans in battleground states are beginning to distance themselves from US President Donald Trump amid signs the party’s grip on the Senate is at risk.

Hints of nervousness among Republican candidates have ­fuelled the Democratic Party’s dream of overturning its three-seat deficit, which seemed highly unlikely at the start of the year.

Since then, Mr Trump’s dipping poll numbers and the Democrats’ choice of former vice-president Joe Biden, a moderate candidate, have changed the calculus.

John James, 38, a businessman and Iraq war veteran who the President considered appointing as his ambassador to the UN in 2018, is hoping to win Michigan’s Senate race for the Republicans.

Asked in a video conference if there was anything on which he disagreed with Mr Trump, he ­replied: “Where do you want to start?” He continued: “Everything from cutting Great Lakes funding, to ‘shithole countries’, to speaking ill of the dead.”

Senate veteran Susan Collins, who is defending Maine against a well-funded Democratic challenger, has chided the President for his “very uneven” handling of the pandemic. “There are times when I think his message has been spot on and he has really deferred to the public health officials,” she said last month. “And then there are times when I think he’s been off-message and has brought up extraneous issues.”

The Republicans under Mitch McConnell have controlled the 100-member Senate chamber since 2015. The Democrats won control of the House of Representatives at the 2018 mid-terms, allowing them to impeach Mr Trump. In January, the Republicans’ Senate majority effectively stifled Democratic efforts to eject the President from office with a conviction in the upper chamber.

Donald Trump’s dipping poll numbers and the choice of Joe Biden as his challenger have revived hopes Democrats could seize control of the Senate in November. Picture: AFP

Control of the Senate is crucial to any president because a simple majority in the chamber is needed to confirm judges and cabinet ­appointments and to pass legislation. About a third of the seats are up for grabs every two years.

Analysts consider the races in four states defended by Republicans — Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina — to be too close to call. The likely Democratic challenger in each of those states raised more money than the incumbent in the first three months of the year.

Montana has emerged as a fifth viable target after Democrat governor Steve Bullock said he would contest its Senate seat.

A poll last week put Mr Bullock seven points ahead of Steve ­Daines, the Republican incumbent. Mr Trump won there by more than 30 points in 2016.

Before the virus hit, Republicans were talking up the prospect of gains in November. Their likeliest win now is Alabama.

Michigan is another target. Mr James’s caution in that race represents a change of view from 2018, when he failed to gain the state’s other Senate seat. In that campaign, he said he backed the President “2000 per cent”.

Arizona and Colorado are the most likely seats to fall to the Democrats. In Arizona, the party is putting up Mark Kelly, a former astronaut whose wife, Gabby Giffords, survived a shot to the head while carrying out her duties as a congresswoman there in 2011.

He has raised more than any other candidate.

In Maine, Sara Gideon, the Democratic state Speaker, raised more than $US7m ($10.7m) in the first quarter of this year, nearly three times the $US2.4m donated to Senator Collins, whose approval rating has plummeted. In North Carolina, Cal Cunningham, the Democrat challenger and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, has a nine-point poll lead over the ­Republican incumbent.

The Times