At a recent Republican donor retreat in Chicago, Herschel Walker was asked a question about fiscal discipline and balancing the budget. The GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Georgia answered with a long answer on Black Lives Matter and the police, failing to address the question, according to people with knowledge of the event.
The surprised reaction to Walker’s response was familiar to Republicans who have been tracking his struggling bid in one of the most competitive Senate contests in the nation. Since easily winning his primary, his polling edge against Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) has become a deficit amid erratic campaigning, verbal flubs and disclosures about three children he had not previously spoken about publicly.
What to know from the May 24 Georgia primaries
1:09
Of the many states running primaries or runoffs on May 24, Georgia took center stage. Here’s what you need to know. (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
The result has been a rescue mission, helmed in part by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has led to several veteran staff hires by Walker’s campaign, including Brett O’Donnell, the party’s most celebrated debate prep strategist. It is just one of the ways GOP leaders have found themselves dealing with cleanup efforts as they round the summer bend on what should be a banner Republican election season.
Herschel Walker says he didn’t try to hide his other three children
Not for decades has the midterm environment appeared as favorable to Republicans, with President Biden’s approval rating at 39 percent, according to a Washington Post polling average in June and the share of voters approving of the country’s direction dropping to 10 percent in a Monmouth poll late last month. But four months from Election Day, Republicans are struggling in several of the marquee Senate races because of candidate challenges and campaigns still recovering from brutal Republican primaries, putting control of the upper chamber of Congress in 2023 up for grabs.
In the battle for control of the House, which tends to hew closely to the national mood, strategists from both parties say they think Republicans are well-positioned to win back the majority. But their success in the fight for the evenly divided Senate and in gubernatorial races, where candidate quality and the unique political contours of each state tend to factor into the outcome, are less of a sure thing in crucial battlegrounds.
“In some of these contests right now, there are some concerns, at least in the Senate map,” said Kevin Madden, a veteran GOP operative. “There are warning signs that some of these candidates are not as strong as they could be given the opportunity at hand.”
Although Republicans are increasingly fretting about their Senate candidates, Democrats remain nervous about the overall political climate. Inflation, rising crime and persistently high gas prices on Democrats’ watch have put their own nominees in serious peril, forcing them on the defensive in many places. Come the fall, operatives in both parties acknowledge, if anger over these issues remains high, even weaker GOP Senate contenders could prevail.
Democrats are defending the narrowest possible Senate majority — the chamber is split 50-50, with Vice President Harris breaking ties — in November, and their vulnerable incumbents in states such as Georgia, Arizona and Nevada are top targets for Republicans charting a path back to power. But none is a sure-bet pickup. The GOP is also defending seats in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where it had hoped to be in a more favorable position.
Nathan Gonzales, a nonpartisan political analyst, said Republicans, even with their candidate struggles, remain in a strong position to take the Senate. “They don’t need to win all of these races; they need a net gain of one seat, and they have at least three, four or five takeover opportunities and two vulnerabilities. Out of that combination, netting one seat looks better,” Gonzales said.
But behind the scenes, Republicans operatives are growing increasingly nervous. One GOP strategist watching the Senate race closely, who like others interviewed for this article requested anonymity to speak more openly about internal deliberations, said that “there are massive problems on the candidate front.” The Republican likened the situation to 2010 and 2012, when the party fell short of winning the Senate majority because of undisciplined and polarizing candidates such as Sharron Angle in Nevada, Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana.
It’s not just political novices who are struggling. In Wisconsin, GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is roughly even with three of his four potential Democratic rivals in a Marquette University poll last month, taken before new disclosures that his office had attempted to play a role in pushing an alternate slate of electors for the 2020 election. Johnson was viewed favorably by 37 percent of the state’s registered voters in that poll and unfavorably by 46 percent.
Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, is also polling slightly behind his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, following a brutal Republican primary that flooded the state’s airwaves with attack ads against the retired surgeon and television personality.
Democrats have also been pointing to recent reporting on J.D. Vance, the GOP senate nominee in Ohio, comparing abortion and slavery in an interview last year with a Catholic podcast. In Arizona, where the primary is next month, they have gone after Blake Masters, a Donald Trump-backed candidate for the Republican Senate nomination who has promoted the false claim that the former president won the 2020 election and has espoused hard-line immigration views.
For now, there is limited independent polling, but at least for the moment, Democrats in these key statewide contests appear to be outpacing the historical norms. In the 2014 midterms, no Senate candidate performed more than nine points better than then-President Barack Obama’s approval rating in exit polls, a pattern that would doom the party with Biden polling at or below 40 percent.
Democrats are also ahead in gubernatorial polling averages for Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Internal party polling has found Democratic incumbents in some gubernatorial races polling double digits ahead of Biden on both job approval and favorability.
“They see governors taking action and give them credit for it,” said one Democratic strategist involved in gubernatorial contests about voters. “In Michigan in focus groups recently, people complained that they don’t know what it is getting down on the national level, but people know they got $400 back from [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer because of auto insurance refunds.”
If Democrats lose the House, it could extinguish Biden’s legislative policy goals for the last two years of his term, but if Democrats can hold the Senate, they can still approve his judicial nominations and blunt House Republicans’ efforts to derail his administration with hearings and investigations. And, after the Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats holding on to the governorships in states with Republican legislatures could determine whether abortion remains legal there.
“The question is, are there forces in the election more powerful than the disappointment in Biden?” asked Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist. “The answer is yes, and that is opposition and fear for MAGA, which is the thing that has driven the last two elections.”
The surprised reaction to Walker’s response was familiar to Republicans who have been tracking his struggling bid in one of the most competitive Senate contests in the nation. Since easily winning his primary, his polling edge against Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) has become a deficit amid erratic campaigning, verbal flubs and disclosures about three children he had not previously spoken about publicly.
What to know from the May 24 Georgia primaries
1:09
Of the many states running primaries or runoffs on May 24, Georgia took center stage. Here’s what you need to know. (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
The result has been a rescue mission, helmed in part by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has led to several veteran staff hires by Walker’s campaign, including Brett O’Donnell, the party’s most celebrated debate prep strategist. It is just one of the ways GOP leaders have found themselves dealing with cleanup efforts as they round the summer bend on what should be a banner Republican election season.
Herschel Walker says he didn’t try to hide his other three children
Not for decades has the midterm environment appeared as favorable to Republicans, with President Biden’s approval rating at 39 percent, according to a Washington Post polling average in June and the share of voters approving of the country’s direction dropping to 10 percent in a Monmouth poll late last month. But four months from Election Day, Republicans are struggling in several of the marquee Senate races because of candidate challenges and campaigns still recovering from brutal Republican primaries, putting control of the upper chamber of Congress in 2023 up for grabs.
In the battle for control of the House, which tends to hew closely to the national mood, strategists from both parties say they think Republicans are well-positioned to win back the majority. But their success in the fight for the evenly divided Senate and in gubernatorial races, where candidate quality and the unique political contours of each state tend to factor into the outcome, are less of a sure thing in crucial battlegrounds.
“In some of these contests right now, there are some concerns, at least in the Senate map,” said Kevin Madden, a veteran GOP operative. “There are warning signs that some of these candidates are not as strong as they could be given the opportunity at hand.”
Although Republicans are increasingly fretting about their Senate candidates, Democrats remain nervous about the overall political climate. Inflation, rising crime and persistently high gas prices on Democrats’ watch have put their own nominees in serious peril, forcing them on the defensive in many places. Come the fall, operatives in both parties acknowledge, if anger over these issues remains high, even weaker GOP Senate contenders could prevail.
Democrats are defending the narrowest possible Senate majority — the chamber is split 50-50, with Vice President Harris breaking ties — in November, and their vulnerable incumbents in states such as Georgia, Arizona and Nevada are top targets for Republicans charting a path back to power. But none is a sure-bet pickup. The GOP is also defending seats in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where it had hoped to be in a more favorable position.
Nathan Gonzales, a nonpartisan political analyst, said Republicans, even with their candidate struggles, remain in a strong position to take the Senate. “They don’t need to win all of these races; they need a net gain of one seat, and they have at least three, four or five takeover opportunities and two vulnerabilities. Out of that combination, netting one seat looks better,” Gonzales said.
But behind the scenes, Republicans operatives are growing increasingly nervous. One GOP strategist watching the Senate race closely, who like others interviewed for this article requested anonymity to speak more openly about internal deliberations, said that “there are massive problems on the candidate front.” The Republican likened the situation to 2010 and 2012, when the party fell short of winning the Senate majority because of undisciplined and polarizing candidates such as Sharron Angle in Nevada, Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana.
It’s not just political novices who are struggling. In Wisconsin, GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is roughly even with three of his four potential Democratic rivals in a Marquette University poll last month, taken before new disclosures that his office had attempted to play a role in pushing an alternate slate of electors for the 2020 election. Johnson was viewed favorably by 37 percent of the state’s registered voters in that poll and unfavorably by 46 percent.
Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, is also polling slightly behind his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, following a brutal Republican primary that flooded the state’s airwaves with attack ads against the retired surgeon and television personality.
Democrats have also been pointing to recent reporting on J.D. Vance, the GOP senate nominee in Ohio, comparing abortion and slavery in an interview last year with a Catholic podcast. In Arizona, where the primary is next month, they have gone after Blake Masters, a Donald Trump-backed candidate for the Republican Senate nomination who has promoted the false claim that the former president won the 2020 election and has espoused hard-line immigration views.
For now, there is limited independent polling, but at least for the moment, Democrats in these key statewide contests appear to be outpacing the historical norms. In the 2014 midterms, no Senate candidate performed more than nine points better than then-President Barack Obama’s approval rating in exit polls, a pattern that would doom the party with Biden polling at or below 40 percent.
Democrats are also ahead in gubernatorial polling averages for Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Internal party polling has found Democratic incumbents in some gubernatorial races polling double digits ahead of Biden on both job approval and favorability.
“They see governors taking action and give them credit for it,” said one Democratic strategist involved in gubernatorial contests about voters. “In Michigan in focus groups recently, people complained that they don’t know what it is getting down on the national level, but people know they got $400 back from [Michigan Gov.] Gretchen Whitmer because of auto insurance refunds.”
If Democrats lose the House, it could extinguish Biden’s legislative policy goals for the last two years of his term, but if Democrats can hold the Senate, they can still approve his judicial nominations and blunt House Republicans’ efforts to derail his administration with hearings and investigations. And, after the Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, Democrats holding on to the governorships in states with Republican legislatures could determine whether abortion remains legal there.
“The question is, are there forces in the election more powerful than the disappointment in Biden?” asked Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist. “The answer is yes, and that is opposition and fear for MAGA, which is the thing that has driven the last two elections.”
