Can Dem senators keep their seats in states won by Trump?
LAFAYETTE, Indiana – Mike Fogleman voted for Democrat Joe Donnelly in the 2012 U.S. Senate race. Then he went for Republican Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race.
Now, Fogleman is backing Donnelly for a second term in the Senate — but with this proviso: “As long as Donnelly supports the Trump agenda, he will get my vote again, as will Trump in 2020.”
Fogleman is a retiree in Tippecanoe County, one of 21 Indiana counties carried by both Donnelly and Trump.
The 2018 battlegrounds are full of so-called pivot counties like Tippecanoe — those that voted “blue”
for Senate six years ago and “red” for president four years later. And they will be key in the fight for control of the U.S. Senate this fall.
There are 54 such counties in Michigan, 52 in West Virginia, 50 in Missouri, 24 in Wisconsin, 22 in Indiana, 22 in North Dakota, 21 in Florida, 17 in Ohio, 10 in Montana and six in Pennsylvania.
All 10 of those states backed Trump in 2016, and all have incumbent Democratic U.S. senators seeking re-election this fall.
The fates of those incumbents will depend in part on whether they can win over at least some Trump voters and replicate the success they had six years ago .
Most of these places are overwhelmingly white. A majority are at least modestly Republican. But all have some history of split-ticket voting.
They include classic bellwethers such as Macomb County in Michigan and Racine County in Wisconsin, as well as scores of smaller, rural, more conservative counties.
“Trump-state” Democrats such as Donnelly are relying on a blend of re-election strategies to meet that challenge: running on parochial issues, touting local roots, embracing bipartisanship, striking populist themes, and claiming common ground on some issues with Trump.
Some, like Donnelly, are centrists in red states. Some, like Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin, are liberals in purple states. Some, like Michigan’s Debbie Stabenow, are clear election favorites. And some, like North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp, are fighting for their political lives.
Non-partisan handicappers generally view half of these Democrats as the favorites in their races: Michigan’s Stabenow, Wisconsin’s Baldwin, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Montana’s Jon Tester and Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey.
The contests involving the other five Democrats — Indiana’s Donnelly, North Dakota’s Heitkamp, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, Florida’s Bill Nelson and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin — are currently rated as tossups.
With a Republican majority of 51-49, Democrats can scarcely afford to lose any incumbents to have any hope of retaking the Senate.
Here’s a closer look at the challenge the Trump vote poses for these 10 Senate Democrats:
WISCONSIN AND MICHIGAN
In Wisconsin, Baldwin won 24 counties in 2012 that voted for Trump in 2016, the vast majority of them in the state’s more rural western half.
What sets Wisconsin apart from most of the other states Trump carried is that almost all of these Baldwin-Trump counties also voted for Obama in 2012.
In other words, these are not red-leaning areas that got redder in 2016; they are some of the swingiest parts of rural and small-town America.
That makes Baldwin’s challenge less daunting than the ones facing Donnelly or Heitkamp, where the math requires them to win a sizeable number of Trump voters on Republican turf.
Instead, Baldwin needs to replicate her 2012 success in historically purple counties that two years ago swung unusually hard from Obama to Trump.
Her formula for doing that: focus on parochial issues such as dairy, nonpartisan problems such as the opioid crisis and populist themes that appeal to some Trump voters, like trade and “Buy America” provisions.
The first-term Democrat has criticized Trump on many issues. But the slogan across her campaign website — “Putting Wisconsin First” — carries an echo of Trump’s famous mantra of “Put America First.”
Two Republicans face off in an Aug. 14 primary to determine Baldwin’s opponent.
The math suggests Michigan’s Stabenow should be facing an uphill battle for her fourth term in office: 54 of the 62 counties that voted for her six years ago backed Trump in 2016, including older industrial areas along the I-75 corridor north and south of Detroit, agricultural regions in Michigan’s Thumb and along Lake Huron, and most of the Upper Peninsula.
But hardly anyone seems to believe she’s imperiled. Instead, some pundits are predicting a romp for the Democrat.
Stabenow, 68, has long stressed her rural roots, as “Debbie from Clare,” the tiny mid-Michigan city where her family ran the local Oldsmobile dealership.
She’s positioned herself as an advocate for Michigan business, including the state’s auto industry, and — like Trump — called for cracking down on trade practices that many voters in these StabenowTrump counties believe have cost Michigan jobs.
Her GOP opponent will be determined in an Aug. 7 primary.
INDIANA AND MISSOURI
Indiana’s Donnelly and Missouri’s McCaskill are two of the most endangered senators in this group.
Donnelly has walked a tightrope as a redstate Democrat and tried to steer clear of polarizing, partisan issues.
Donnelly’s campaign trademark is touring the state in his RV. In his reelection bid against the GOP’s Mike Braun, he has touted his support for veteran causes and his role in bi-partisan bills praised by Trump, such as the Right to Try legislation, which makes it easier for terminally ill people to receive experimental treatments.
In Missouri, close to half the state’s counties (50 out of 114) voted for both McCaskill in 2012 and Trump in 2016.
They ranged from the GOP stronghold of Greene County in the Ozarks to the more sparsely populated farm counties in the north.
Their shift two years ago was massive: On average, Trump’s margin in these 50 counties was 22 points better than Romney’s.
Bashed by conservatives as too liberal, McCaskill has campaigned heavily outside Missouri’s Democratic strongholds in St. Louis and Kansas City.
“Her strategy all along has been to be conspicuously moderate and whenever possible nonpartisan or bipartisan, while keeping her Democratic base happy,” Smith said, calling it a dicey balancing act but one “she is very good at.”
OHIO AND PENNSYLVANIA
Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown’s populist politics on trade and other issues seems to be serving him well in a state where Trump made big inroads in 2016.
Brown opposes Trump on most issues but has praised the president’s tariffs on steel, blaming “Chinese cheating” for shuttered Ohio steel plants.
Polls give Brown a double-digit lead over GOP congressman Jim Renacci.
Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey also is favored in his re-election bid against Republican congressman Lou Barletta. Like Brown, Casey is aligned with Trump on trade, an intriguing wildcard issue in the fight for the Senate, with some Democratic incumbents largely backing the Trump tariffs and others opposing them.
But Casey has been a fierce critic on other issues, including immigration.
The contrast is stark with Barletta, an outspoken supporter of the president’s immigration curbs and his policy of separating migrant parents and children at the border.
MONTANA AND NORTH DAKOTA
While having Trump in the White House puts considerable pressure on red-state Democrats, it also creates opportunities for Democrats such as Montana’s Jon Tester to show bipartisanship.
“There are certain issues where he can rise above looking like a partisan politician,” said Jeremy Johnson, an associate political science professor at Carroll College in Helena, Montana.
Both Tester and North Dakota’s Heitkamp are among the Senate Democrats who face heavy pressure to back Trump’s new Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, because of the conservatism of their home states.
Trump carried Montana by 20 points, North Dakota by 36.
Heitkamp, a top GOP target this year, has been on both sides of Trump’s rhetoric, with the president praising her at times and bashing her at times.
About 40 percent of the counties she won in 2012 later voted for Trump.
She is opposed by the state’s at-large Republican U.S. House member, Kevin Cramer.
WEST VIRGINIA
Almost every county in West Virginia is a Manchin-Trump county.
Senate Democrat Joe Manchin carried 52 of the state’s 55 counties in 2012, while Trump carried them all in 2016.
Manchin has a long track record of winning on red turf.
But this time around, Republicans believe they have a better chance than ever to knock him off because of the state’s partisan trajectory and a GOP nominee they think can deliver in state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey.
Still, one recent poll gave Manchin a ninepoint edge.
“You’re looking at a very successful politician who finds himself at odds with the sentiments of the majority (of the state),” said Robert Rupp, a political science professor at West Virginia Wesleyan College. ”
FLORIDA
If Democrat Bill Nelson is going to win a fourthterm this year — his likely GOP opponent will be current Sunshine State Gov. Rick Scott — he must continue his streak of winning parts of the state that otherwise tilt Republican.
One fiercely contested battleground will be Brevard County, on the state’s Atlantic coast, where Nelson grew up and where he also served as a congressman for 12 years.
He carried it by 5 points in 2012.
“That ends this November,” said Rick Lacey, head of the county’s GOP committee, vowing that Scott would carry Brevard, which is home to the Kennedy Space Center and among the 21 Nelson-Trump counties in Florida.
In Scott, Nelson would be facing a more formidable challenger than some other Democratic incumbents in this group.
But Trump won by merely one point in Florida, which saw a far smaller GOP shift between the last two presidential elections than the other nine “Trump states” where Senate Democrats face re-election. Craig Gilbert reports for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; Kaitlin Lange reports for The Indianapolis Star; and Todd Spangler reports for the Detroit Free Press. Contributing: Scott Wartman, Cincinnati Enquirer; Candy Woodall and Ed Mahon, York (Pa.) Daily Record; Phil Drake, Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune; William Schmitt, Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader; and John McCarthy, Florida Today. Follow Craig Gilbert, Kaitlin Lange and Todd Spangler on Twitter: @WisVoter, @kaitlin_lange and @tsspangler