Tough choice for vulnerable GOP senators: Embrace or reject Trump

When Democratic Rep. Brad Carson embarked on his bid for Senate in 2004, he took a big risk, telling Oklahomans it was OK to vote for President George W. Bush — as long as they voted for him, too.

Running in a heavily Republican state that was sure to reject Democrat John Kerry for president, Carson kept his distance, only referring to Kerry as “the Democratic nominee” during a debate against former Rep. Tom Coburn (R).

{mosads}Carson’s gamble half-worked, with voters giving Bush an overwhelming win in Oklahoma.

But they didn’t vote for him.

Historically, vulnerable congressional candidates who distance themselves from their parties’ nominees have had mixed results.

Many Senate Republicans face those prospects this year, with forecasters predicting a historic down-ticket drag caused by controversial presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

If they stick with Trump and he loses overwhelmingly, they’re in trouble. But if they run away from him, they could face serious retribution from base voters.

This year, the political calculations are particularly important because Republicans will lose control of the Senate if Democrats net five seats. 

“There haven’t been many examples when there’s been this fear that a party will lose this badly so early in the process,” said Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University.

“But there are just not a lot of cases where you openly repudiate the candidate, because the cost is so high to you.” 

And this year’s election has repeatedly proved conventional wisdom wrong, making it even harder for candidates to decide whether to distance themselves from Trump. 

The billionaire businessman could, many believe, lose decisively to likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a landslide defeat resembling Republican Barry Goldwater’s in 1964 or Democrat Walter Mondale’s in 1984. During those years, many senators saw the writing on the wall and steered clear of the nominee.

So far, a handful of vulnerable Republican senators have begun distancing themselves from Trump. But none has gone the next step and outright refused to support him.

Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Pat Toomey (Pa.), first-term senators in tough reelection fights, had all criticized Trump well before he became the last candidate standing.

But the trio, along with fellow vulnerable incumbents Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Rob Portman (Ohio), have since pledged support for Trump as the GOP nominee. Only Toomey has kept alive the prospect of breaking with Trump.

The hedging shows a recognition, in part, of the risks associated with bucking the party’s nominee, borne out over decades of elections.

The 2012 elections saw Republican candidates — including , Rick Berg (N.D.), Linda McMahon (Conn.) and then-Sen. Scott Brown (Mass.) — distancing themselves from nominee Mitt Romney. Many were running from Romney’s
notorious comment that 47 percent of voters would back President Obama because they “are dependent upon government” and “believe that they are victims.” 

They all lost. But Sen. Dean Heller (Nev.) won despite keeping Romney at arm’s length. And Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) distanced himself from Obama and still won.

Some incumbents have taken steps even more drastic than those of Carson, the Oklahoma representative.

Republican Sen. Gordon Smith (Ore.) in 2008 and Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle (S.D.) in 2004 each ran ads showing them embracing the opposing party’s standard-bearer. Both lost.

Geoffrey Skelley, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, told The Hill that creating distance between down-ballot candidates and presidential nominees is more difficult these days. 

That’s in large part thanks to the fact that national candidates all largely run under the same umbrella instead of relying on regional factions.

“Our politics is truly nationalized. A Democrat from Massachusetts is likely to agree on most things with a Democrat from North Carolina,” he said.

“That creates a real problem in running away because there isn’t a regional difference about how it’s done.”

He and other experts added that more frequent straight-ticket voting further complicates the situation. 

Skelley said that in each of the past two presidential elections, 80 percent of states that held a Senate election voted for the same party in both contests.

And by the 2014 midterm elections, just 31 House districts bucked their 2012 presidential preference.

That dynamic means trouble for Republican candidates if voters who reject Trump aren’t convinced to turn back to GOP candidates down the ballot.

“The straight-ticket voting is a real problem for Republicans,” Skelley said.

“If Trump gets beaten handily, it could lead to circumstances where Democrats would have a chance at taking back the House and win a couple of Senate seats that they are currently seen as underdogs in, like Arizona.”

The 1964 Republican nomination followed a similar course as this year’s, with the party facing a major internal ideological battle.

The Goldwater Republicans, who backed their nominee’s ardent conservatism and belief in limiting the reach of government, broke with the mainstream of the party and shepherded their candidate to the nomination, much to the dismay of party elites. That prompted questions about whether the party should unite or disavow Goldwater’s vision for the country. 

New York Republican Sen. Kenneth Keating notably refused to endorse Goldwater, going as far as unsuccessfully placing New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s name into nomination at the party’s national convention.

Keating ultimately met a fate similar to Goldwater’s, losing his reelection bid to Robert F. Kennedy that year.

But other Senate Republicans who gave tepid endorsements of Goldwater had better luck, even if they had previously criticized him.

Ohio Sen. Robert Taft Jr. won his race offering what The Associated Press referred to at the time as a “mild” endorsement that helped him “avoid personal identification with the Republican standard bearer.”

And Pennsylvania Sen. Hugh Scott, who worked the convention floor for a Goldwater alternative, squeaked out a victory after his own reluctant endorsement three months before the elections.

Democrats too faced mixed results in their efforts to keep 1984 nominee Mondale at a distance.

Nebraska Sen. J. James Exon (D) barely won reelection in part because he repeatedly cast himself as an ally of President Reagan.

But running away from a nominee is no guarantee a candidate can escape him.

During Democrat Jim Hunt’s Senate bid in 1984, the sitting governor refused to campaign with Mondale. But longtime Republican Sen. Jesse Helms hung the nominee around his rival’s neck anyway. Helms mentioned Mondale’s name 40 times during a debate, according to The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. Hunt lost.

The Democratic opponents of Ayotte, Kirk, Toomey, Portman and Johnson continue to try to tie the Republican candidates to Trump. 

With an eye toward history, Republican senators and their staffs have to weigh a handful of variables, including whether the potential rejection from Trump voters is worth it and how certain they are Trump will lose.

“It’s very possible that what’s been driving Trump’s support within the Republican Party is not something that’s going to go away,” Skelley said.

“If you opposed Trump … you could become the target of Trump supporters going forward.”