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New spin from GOP senators: Maybe Trump's not so bad

Some Republican lawmakers say he could actually help them keep the Senate in November. But others in the party call that spin.

By Burgess Everett and Anna Palmer

Senate Republicans have a new pitch when it comes to Donald Trump: He might not be so bad for their chances of keeping their tenuous majority, after all.

While the GOP establishment confronts an existential crisis over what Trump at the top of the ticket would mean for the future of the party, several Republican senators have been signaling behind the scenes to donors and supporters that the real estate magnate could actually help them in November.

Several Republican lawmakers have told lobbyists and donors that a Trump ticket would boost turnout and that it would be easier to create distance from Trump on policy than from Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas or Marco Rubio of Florida. They reason that Hillary Clinton has just as many negatives as Trump, if not more.

Trump “will bring new people to the party, no question about it,” said one Senate Republican. Trump supporters are “not Republicans, they’re not really Democrats; they just don’t vote,” the senator said. But for Trump “they’re all in. He brings those people to the party, I don’t care what people say.”

The positive Trump messaging came hours before his blowout night on Super Tuesday, when he took another leap toward the GOP nomination. Running alongside Trump at the top of the ticket is becoming a lot less conceptual for lawmakers.

“Everything we’ve thought about convention and what usually happens in elections has proven to be inapplicable, at least in so far as Trump’s popularity is concerned,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a former National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman. “I don’t know that he would lose the general election against Hillary Clinton, she’s such a damaged candidate in her own right.”

Not everyone on Capitol Hill or downtown is buying the new line of messaging. Multiple K Streeters think it is wishful thinking and a way for lawmakers to keep asking donors to cut checks for their races. And, some lawmakers who oppose Trump said it was just the latest spin as it becomes increasingly likely he’ll be the GOP nominee.

“I don’t see how if you have a loser on the ticket that helps,” said another GOP senator.

Republicans’ ability to keep control of the Senate will depend on their ability to reelect senators in blue and purple states, such as Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

Both have distanced themselves from Trump’s controversial remarks but haven’t explicitly said they won’t support the mogul. It’s a difficult balancing act, but Senate Republicans seem to think they have little choice at this point. They want Trump’s voters on their side without turning off voters disgusted by his rhetoric.

“Each one of these individuals will look at how many more people Trump is bringing into the race, whether or not he can increase the interest [of people] who may otherwise not show up to vote,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D). For GOP senators up for reelection in swing states, how they handle Trump may be “more difficult,” he added. “We’re going to have to address that in terms of funding and resources” provided by the national party.

National GOP strategists are also educating senators that, historically, the strategy of running against your own party’s nominee simply doesn’t work. So Republican senators are trying something subtler.

In a case study of the GOP strategy, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday denounced racism, David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan without uttering Trump’s name or saying he would oppose Trump as the nominee.

Yet McConnell also did not deny a private remark reported by The New York Times last weekend that Republican senators would drop Trump “like a hot rock” if he becomes the nominee.

“I don’t remember saying anything like that to all of you,” he told reporters with a knowing grin.

The posture could give McConnell’s members more room to create daylight from Trump. Republican senators are weighing how to break with his divisive rhetoric on Muslims and Hispanics and his slow-footed disavowal of Duke, while not alienating the new voters he could bring to them. They predict Trump will modulate his rhetoric if he wins the nomination, so that incumbent senators aren’t on the defensive for eight more months. Democrats, of course, will do everything possible to keep his most incendiary comments from the primary front and center.

And Republicans are going back over a memo penned by NRSC Executive Director Ward Baker about how to run with Trump. That memo, leaked in October, encouraged them to break with Trump when they can but also adapt the best elements of his anti-Washington agenda.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who is in a tough reelection fight against Russ Feingold, said his “approach has always been to find areas of agreement, accentuate the positives” when it comes to a GOP nominee. Johnson said he has no plans to push an anti-Trump message in his campaign.

“I’m planning my own campaign in terms of where I’ve been,” Johnson said.