As the nation mourned 100,000 dead Wednesday and Trump tweeted out claims of being the country's "best president" in history, Republican strategists are quietly mulling the possibility that Trump could ultimately sink them all in November.
CNN talked to seven GOP operatives not directly involved with Trump's campaign and they were, let's just say, sounding grim.
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Trump's abysmal pandemic response combined with the economic fallout is starting to spill over on to other Republicans running for reelection. The public polling showing Joe Biden ahead of Trump nationally is consistent with their private polling, and that's starting to become a bigger liability for Republicans in key Senate races.
Taken together, the strategists’ outlook now has changed considerably from pre-pandemic times when they were still feeling bullish about keeping the GOP Senate majority. Democrats would have to net either four seats or three seats plus the presidency to take control of the upper chamber. Now GOP operatives are contemplating the possibility of a "wipeout," as CNN put it, and talk has turned to minimizing their losses.
"This leaves them hoping for a minor rather than devastating defeat, something akin to Mitt Romney's narrow loss in 2012, when Republicans lost two Senate seats, rather than John McCain's performance four years earlier, when they lost eight," writes CNN.
At this point, the strategists worry about taking a double hit at the ballot box from depressed turnout among GOP loyalists and a rejection by swing voters. How it all plays out could come down to whether Americans trust Trump to rebuild the economy. The operatives are hanging on to polling that shows low-40s approval from Trump's pandemic response but still has him at around 50% for his handling of the economy. That's also a point the Trump campaign is echoing as they stress that Trump is the right person to helm an economic reboot.
The problem, of course, is that Trump is pushing America back to work without any inkling of a containment plan in the event of a second wave. So Trump's argument for reelection rests almost entirely on the Hail Mary pass he's in the process of making. And historically, voters' views of the economy are usually baked in by the end of the second quarter anyway.
In the meantime, the Trump campaign is trying to sell GOP lawmakers on not abandoning Trump.
"Any candidate that wants to win will run with the President," said Erin Perrine, the Trump campaign's deputy communications director. "He has the energy, the enthusiasm and the grass roots infrastructure. If you are a candidate you are going to want to be a part of that movement."
If you have to say that out loud, things are getting a little desperate.