Congressional Democrats believe that they can not only recapture the Senate, but a House Majority, in the wake of Donald Trump’s latest meltdown.
House Democratic electioneers told The Washington Post on Monday evening that internal polls conducted the night before reveal Republican legislators confronting “a backlash regardless of whether they continued to support Trump or not.”
Surveys conducted after the second presidential debate by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) show their candidates have “a 12-point edge if the Republican recently withdrew their support from Trump,” the Post said.
“If a Republican lawmaker continues to support Trump, the private polling shows they are at a similar 12-point deficit,” the paper added.
The story come just days after The New York Times reported that internal polling conducted by both parties showed GOP lawmakers facing Trump-inspired wrath from much of the electorate in November.
One Republican strategist told the paper that independent voters are increasingly repulsed by the tack the GOP has taken.
“They are really starting to pull away from Trump,” Liesl Hickey had told The Times, calling the Republican nominee’s disapproval from independents as “uncharted territory.”
Notably, the Times’ published its report on Congressional races on Thursday—after the first presidential debate and the day before a bombshell video tape was revealed by the Post, showing Trump boasting about sexual assault and philandering.
“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there, and she was married,” Trump said in the video, from 2005, while on an “Access Hollywood” bus with Billy Bush. “And when you’re a star, you can do anything. Grab them by the pussy.”
The Post reported on Monday that the DCCC is already producing ads, tying the predatory remarks to lawmakers that have expressed support for Trump.
In the wake of the tape’s release, many prominent Republicans, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), distanced themselves from their standard-bearer.
Ryan did not walk back his endorsement of the presidential nominee, but said on Monday that he would no longer campaign for Trump and focus attention, instead, on Congressional races.
The announcement came the day after the second presidential debate—one in which Trump stalked the stage behind Clinton, while she talked, and promised to imprison her, if elected.
Trump, who had apologized for the comments, also dismissed them Sunday night as “locker room talk,” and denied having done the things he said on the 2005 tape.
Democrats have to win 30 seats to flip the House. As recently as last month, party leaders said they believed they could gain up to 20 seats this November, as the Post noted.
They also only have to win four seats to retake the Senate, and have a decent shot at doing so, with Republicans defending more incumbents than Democrats in toss-up states.
