GOP senators fear voters aren’t giving them enough credit for ‘incredibly popular’ COVID-19 response

Republican senators are privately concerned that voters aren't giving them credit for coronavirus relief efforts.

A top GOP Senate campaign official griped during a private conference call Wednesday that senators facing re-election had a "problem" if voters did not credit them with passing an "incredibly popular" aid package, reported the Washington Post.

“What our members have done is incredibly popular,” said Kevin McLaughlin, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “The problem and the room to improve is, is not a lot of voters associate it with the members of Congress. They’re seeing their governors out on TV every day, for obvious reasons, and so they’re giving a lot more credit to their governors.”

A person on the call told the Post that McLaughlin said that perception would not change until the economy reopened.

“It certainly is going to be really, really tough if we don’t, you know, start to kind of, at least on some level, get some of these places open and get people back to work,” McLaughlin said. “That’s going to be important when the time is right.”

Polls and fundraising numbers showed Democratic candidates with an advantage in several key states, but McLaughlin told donors that GOP candidates must do a better job of claiming credit for the pandemic aid packages the Republican majority approved.

“The numbers are good for our folks, but they are not as great as they are for the governors,” said McLaughlin. “So it’s important for our candidates to be out there beating their own chest and subtly and respectfully reminding people what the United States Senate did, and Congress did, to help out Americans through this tough time.”