It’s been a rough few weeks for the GOP: The political world was rocked by President Joe Biden handing off the presidential race to Vice President Kamala Harris and her taking the baton at full speed. All of a sudden, the Democrats were surging with donations and volunteers. Then Harris went and picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate, and got another big bounce. Every dollar spent and every volunteer recruited in the states will help downballot.
Which means the already problematic GOP Senate challengers have even more to worry about. They haven’t been helping themselves much lately.
Take Eric Hovde in Wisconsin. He went on friendly Fox News a little over a week and encountered a slightly tough question about why he was trailing incumbent Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin by 11 points in a Fox News poll. His answer? “I can’t speak of it because I haven’t seen the poll.” The poll that was literally just explained to him.
He got off relatively easy there. He wasn’t asked about the fact that Baldwin has a 7-1 lead in fundraising in the race.
Hovde’s difficulties in Wisconsin might have something to do with the fact that he actually lives a lot of the time at his $7 million oceanfront mansion in Laguna Beach, California. In fact, back in June he was pictured hanging out on the beach there when he was scheduled for a meet and greet at Oconto County’s Copperfest Parade.
Kari Lake in Arizona at least had some good news recently. She won her primary race, as expected. But every silver lining is wrapped in a dark cloud: almost 45% of Republicans voted for someone else in the primary.
This isn’t going to help her win them back.
On the heels of that dubious win, Lake had an abrupt about-face on the issue of debates. Back in March she had a news conference announcing “I am ready to debate Ruben Gallego right now, right here … “I’ll debate him at that table right now … I’ll debate him any time.”
Now? Not so much. “I think we should talk about which debate we do,” Lake said on primary day.
Meanwhile, her opponent Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego announced he gained the support of 40 prominent officials and operatives in the Republican and independent parties. As of Aug. 5, Gallego had an 11-point edge in polling in 538’s aggregate.
In Senate battleground Ohio, GOP candidate Bernie Moreno is challenging Sen. Sherrod Brown, and is grappling with some inconvenient stories. For example, there’s this recent AP story about Moreno’s family who is investing big in his campaign.The report details the less than clean backstory of members of the Moreno clan, featuring $788 million in bribery, ongoing criminal investigations, and U.S. taxpayer money directed to line the Moreno’s family’s pockets.
Moreno has already admitted to shredding evidence in a wage theft case, he was sued for race, gender, and age discrimination at his high-end Cleveland car dealership, and has been caught lying about pretty much everything.
Brown had a 4-point lead in the polling aggregate at the end of July. He’s doing the job he has always done for Ohio. He told CNN his campaign will be what it’s always been about: regular Ohioans. “That’s what this election is going to be about,” Brown said. “It’s going to be making the contrast with my fight for dignity of work, and my opponent’s background where he had to pay $400,000 in back wages to his employees.”
In neighboring Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick has been gleaning some bad headlines lately, like “Dave McCormick Calls for Cooler Rhetoric but Has Stake in Site Hosting Hate Speech, Conspiracies.”
After the assassination attempt last month against Donald Trump, McCormick told a local station, “I hope it will have people step back and reflect … The political rhetoric that we see, and we’ve seen growing, is really concerning. It’s hard to imagine that this environment of nastiness and dehumanizing rhetoric doesn’t contribute to violence.”
Helping to spread that nastiness is, of course, the right-wing social media platform Rumble. According to the Bucks County Beacon, McCormick listed between $1 million and $5 million invested in Rumble in his latest financial disclosure.
McCormick is also getting hit again by labor in the state for his vow to “roll back” funding from President Joe Biden’s Infrastructure Bill, which has provided the state $13.1 billion for highway and bridge investment.
“He is basically saying he doesn’t want me at work right now,” one member of the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters says in this video on social media.
Incumbent Sen. Bob Casey has a 5-point lead, and just got a nice boost when he shared the stage with Harris and Walz for their official campaign launch in Philadelphia.
Speaking of inflammatory social media posts by Republicans—meet Montana’s Tim Sheehy! He created a firestorm this week when he tweeted an antisemitic meme.
[The meme] shows the United States’ highest ranking Jewish official, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, controlling the radio, TV and money. Sheehy asks in the posting, “We need your help to stop Jon Tester and Chuck Schumer. Donate to Tim Sheehy for Montana today!”
A puppeteer’s hands, possibly Schumer’s, controlled the strings to radio, TV, and money portion, which was joined by a cartoon of a bag with a “$.”
The Daily Montanan reports that Montana Jewish Project attempted repeatedly to talk to the Sheehy campaign about the post, but received no reply. Rebecca Stanfel, a leader in the group, told the paper she “went old-school,” and sent a certified letter to the only address she could find for the campaign. A staff member responded by putting her off “until later this month.”
The meme isn’t the only issue for Sheehy that concerns the Jewish community. He has a campaign staffer, Caleb Oriet, who recently called himself “deputy political director,” with a history of posting and liking racist and antisemitic content on social media. Axios discovered Oriet’s social media posts, which were deleted after Axios asked about them.
This race is a nail-biter for incumbent Sen. Jon Tester in what polling has been done in the state, which isn’t a lot. Cook Political report rates the state a toss-up.
RELATED STORIES:
The GOP has a ‘candidate quality’ Senate problem—again
GOP Senate candidates are just plain weird about women
Help keep these guys out of the Senate. Donate now to these Daily Kos-endorsed candidates.
