This Is a Rough Year to Be a Down-Ticket Republican
North Carolina is a key swing state in the presidential race, has one of the top five or six most important and competitive Senate races this cycle, and also a governor’s race this year. You would think the Republican candidate in the gubernatorial race, Dan Forest, would at least be in the ballpark against incumbent Democrat Roy Cooper. But Forest is trailing badly — by 14 points in the most recent poll, and by 20 in one in July. In the Senate race, incumbent Republican Thom Tillis is doing better, but is consistently trailing by a few points. Tarheel State Republicans have their work cut out for them.
Michigan is a top-tier swing state in this year. Just about every Republican loves John James, the 2018 Senate candidate who outperformed every other Michigan Republican who sought a statewide office and who the GOP believed had a much better shot against the less-well-known incumbent Democrat Gary Peters. So far James is doing . . . eh, maybe okay at best. The CNBC poll shows James trailing by three points, the EPIC/MRA poll has him down by ten, as does the Gravis poll. A CNN poll last month had him down by 16 points.
In Maine, history has demonstrated that incumbent Republican Susan Collins is really, really tough to beat. But she trailed in all four public polls conducted in July by four or five points. It would be foolish to count Collins out, but she’s probably the underdog at this point.
In Arizona, appointed Republican senator Martha McSally would presumably have the advantage of quasi-incumbency as a wind at her back; and McSally only lost her Senate bid in 2018 by 2.3 points. But she consistently trails Democrat Mark Kelly, sometimes by as little as two points, sometimes by as much as twelve points.
In Kansas, the state GOP dodged a metaphorical bullet when Roger Marshall beat Kris Kobach in the Senate primary. The first post-primary poll shows Marshall ahead . . . but only by two points. That could be worse, but it is far from the kinds of leads that Republicans running statewide are used to enjoying in Kansas.
In Iowa, only three polls have been conducted this year, and all of them show incumbent Republican Joni Ernst in a tight race. Every Iowa Republican probably expected a tough race in a state that is proving important for the presidential election as well, but keep in mind six years ago, Ernst’s race was supposed to be close, and she won by more than eight points.
The one recent poll in Colorado’s Senate race put incumbent Republican Cory Gardner down by six points to former governor John Hickenlooper. As grim as that sounds, that’s a dramatic improvement from the spring, when Hickenlooper led by double digits.
Perhaps the most surprising poll result of the cycle was Quinnipiac’s late July, early August poll in South Carolina, showing challenger Jaime Harrison tied with incumbent Republican Lindsey Graham. Previous polls showed Graham ahead by comfortable margins. The jury is still out on whether Quinnipiac detected dramatic movement in what is seen as a deep-red state, or was just an odd outlier. (Perhaps the sample is unrepresentative of who is likely to vote this fall. In that Quinnipiac survey, 31 percent of South Carolinian registered voter respondents self-identified as Republicans; in the 2016 exit poll, 46 percent of South Carolinian voters self-identified as Republicans.)
Georgia has two simultaneous Senate races this year, and incumbent David Purdue is favored over challenger Jon Ossoff. And so far all of the polling shows Purdue ahead . . . by the low-to-mid single digits.
Not all the recent Senate polling shows bad news. The only poll of Minnesota’s Senate race so far this year puts Republican Jason Lewis within three points of Tina Smith, the woman appointed to replace Al Franken. That same survey put Trump within three points in Minnesota. Maybe all the riots in Minneapolis and calls to abolish the police aren’t good for the Democrats up there.
Republicans recently got a pleasant surprise in Montana, when the most recent Emerson poll put incumbent GOP senator Steve Daines ahead by six points over Democrat Steve Bullock, the current governor. An earlier poll had put Bullock ahead by two points.
The last few polls in Texas suggested the talk that Biden could win the Lone Star State was overwrought, and Jon Cornyn is on pace to win comfortably. Right now, it appears Beto O’Rourke’s Senate bid was the high-water mark for Texas Democrats.
The rest of the governor’s races are mostly in deep red states and look pretty safe for Republicans. Mike Parson, who took over in Missouri after Eric Greitens resigned, is looking solid. In Montana, Representative Greg Gianforte is enjoying a lead, although he’s not quite body-slamming his Democratic rival. In New Hampshire, incumbent Republican Chris Sununu is way ahead of both potential Democratic challengers. The only poll in Indiana’s governor’s race so far this year put incumbent Republican Eric Holcomb ahead by 20 points.
We’re just not seeing a lot of public polling for House races. The Democratic firm Public Policy Polling offered a survey showing the open-seat race in Montana is a tie. The Deseret News poll shows Republican Burgess Owens — J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets! — tied with incumbent Democrat Ben McAdams in Utah in Mia Love’s old district. Mariannette Miller-Meeks has a four-point lead in the open-seat race Iowa’s Second District, which would be a GOP pickup.
Add it all up, and it turns into a pretty gloomy outlook for down-ticket Republicans. There are exceptions here and there, but deep red states look a little less red, promising first-term Republicans such as Gardner, Ernst, and Tillis are in tough shape, the purple states look a little more blue, and light blue-ish states where Republicans thought they had a shot look out of reach. Republican governors appear to be doing noticeably better than Republican senators, so maybe this is just a tough year to be associated with the status quo in Washington. Or maybe it’s easier to develop an identity separate from President Trump when you work in a state capital.
This is where someone will insist you can’t trust poll numbers, the polls were wrong before — eh, not so much in 2017, 2018, and 2019 — and Donald Trump will win reelection in a landslide, winning back the House for the GOP and expanding the Republican Senate majority, et cetera. Maybe the nation’s pollsters, large and small, all got together and decided to put their thumbs on the scale to make the numbers look worse for Republicans. The GOP had better hope that’s the case.
