Trump presidency is facing high stakes in midterms
Control of Congress and all that entails hangs in the balance, with elections in 2020 another subplot
President Donald Trump has been acting like a candidate on the ballot this week, staging daily doubleheader rallies and blasting out ads for Republicans up for election Tuesday. Given the stakes for his presidency, he might as well be.
A knot of investigations. Partisan gridlock. A warning shot for his re-election bid. Trump faces potentially debilitating fallout should Republicans lose control of one or both chambers in Congress, ending two years of GOP hegemony in Washington. A White House that has struggled to stay on course under favorable circumstances would be tested in dramatic ways. A president who often battles his own party, would face a far less forgiving opposition.
On the flip side, if Republicans maintain control of the House and Senate, that’s not only a victory for the GOP, but a validation of Trump’s brand of politics and his unconventional presidency. That result, considered less likely even within the White House, would embolden the president as he launches his own re-election bid.
At a rally in West Virginia on Friday a defiant Trump brushed off the prospect of a Democratic House takeover.
“It could happen,” he said, adding “don’t worry about it. I’ll just figure it out.”
Meanwhile his staff has begun preparations to deal with a flood
of subpoenas that could arrive next year from Democrat-controlled committees, and the White House counsel’s office has been trying to attract seasoned lawyers to field oversight inquiries.
Democrats make plans
Should they take the House, Democrats are plotting to reopen the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Other committees are plotting aggressive oversight of Trump’s administration and his web of business interests. Some Democrats are
looking at using the House Ways and Means Committee to obtain copies of the president’s tax returns after he broke with decades of tradition and withheld them from public scrutiny during his campaign for the White House.
A slim Republican majority in the House would also present challenges, likely inflaming simmering intraparty disputes. First among them would be a potentially bitter leadership fight in the House to replace retiring Speaker Paul Ryan. But a narrowed majority would also exacerbate divisions over policy — and continued unified control could leave
the GOP facing the blame for gridlock.
“Clearly there’s an awful lot on the line in terms of the legislative agenda,” said Republican consultant Josh Holmes. “The prospect of a Democratic-controlled House or Senate puts a serious wrinkle in getting anything through Congress.”
Some in the White House think losing to Democrats might be preferable. They view Democrats’ eagerness to investigate the president as a blessing in disguise in the run-up to 2020.
Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush’s press secretary, said Democratic control of the House “has both peril and promise for the president.”
“The peril is subpoenas, investigations, legal bills and headaches,” he said. “The promise is Trump will have an easy foil to run against: Pelosi and Democratic leadership.”
White House aides have discussed floating popular legislative issues, such as infrastructure, to tempt Democrats and test the unity of the Democratic opposition.
GOP on the offensive
While keeping the House remained an uphill battle for the GOP, Trump and Republicans have tried to sell voters on the possibilities of another two years of GOP control. They promised hardline immigration policies and more tax cuts, arguing that Democrats would erase two years of progress.
In the closing weeks of the midterms, Trump has unleashed a no-holds-barred effort to boost Republicans as he dipped into the same undercurrents of unease that defined his 2016 campaign. From stoking fears about illegal immigration to warning of economic collapse if Democrats are victorious.
But a House loss will prompt GOP hand-wringing about the divides in the party and the struggles for moderate Republicans to run in the Trump, as well as raise questions about whether the Democratic gains point to a path for presidential hopefuls in 2020.
Democratic consultant Jim Manley said Tuesday might reveal if Democrats are having any success recapturing white working class voters in the Midwest who backed Trump in 2016.
“Trump is helping. He’s becoming more and more radioactive,” Manley said. “There’s a chance to try and win them back over.”
But while the results might reveal weaknesses in the Republican coalition, midterm elections are different than presidential years. Republicans were quick to point out that the party in power typically suffers defeats in midterms. Former President Barack Obama was in his words “shellacked” in 2010 and went on to win re-election in 2012.
Said Fleischer: “In the aftermath people will exaggerate its meaning and in two years’ time everything will have changed.”