Trump's COVID-19 debacle has the GOP panicking he's going to cost them the Senate: report

On Saturday, The New York Timesreported that Republicans are increasingly worried that President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic will not only take him down in November, but take down the GOP Senate majority with him.

"The scale of the G.O.P.’s challenge has crystallized in the last week," reported Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman. "With 26 million Americans now having filed for unemployment benefits, Mr. Trump’s standing in states that he carried in 2016 looks increasingly wobbly: New surveys show him trailing significantly in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, and he is even narrowly behind in must-win Florida."

"Democrats raised substantially more money than Republicans did in the first quarter in the most pivotal congressional races, according to recent campaign finance reports," continued the report. "And while Mr. Trump is well ahead in money compared with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democratic donors are only beginning to focus on the general election, and several super PACs plan to spend heavily on behalf of him and the party."

“You got to have some hope to sell people,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK). “But Trump usually sells anger, division and 'we’re the victim.'”

“He’s got to run very close for us to keep the Senate,” said veteran GOP strategist Charles R. Black Jr. “I’ve always thought we were favored to, but I can’t say that now with all these cards up in the air.”

"Republicans were taken aback this past week by the results of a 17-state survey commissioned by the Republican National Committee. It found the president struggling in the Electoral College battlegrounds and likely to lose without signs of an economic rebound this fall, according to a party strategist outside the R.N.C. who is familiar with the poll’s results," the report added.

"A recent wave of polling has fueled Republican anxieties, as Mr. Biden leads in virtually every competitive state," said the report. "The surveys also showed Republican senators in Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina and Maine trailing or locked in a dead heat with potential Democratic rivals — in part because their fate is linked to Mr. Trump’s job performance. If incumbents in those states lose, and Republicans pick up only the Senate seat in Alabama, Democrats would take control of the chamber should Mr. Biden win the presidency."

You can read more here.