By Todd Lassa
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden holds an 8.9-point lead over President Donald J. Trump (51.2 percent to 42.3 percent) according to an average of major political polls by Real Clear Politics. It is reasonable to ask whether the president’s Friday morning tweet slamming Sen. Susan Collins helps or hurts the Republican senator from Maine now fighting for her political life, who has said she will not vote in favor of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Collins faces a daunting challenge from Democrat Sara Gideon, Maine’s House speaker, in the Nov. 3 elections.
The president’s Friday tweet reads, “There is a nasty rumor out there that @Susan Collins of Maine will not be supporting our great United States Supreme Court Nominee. Well, she didn’t support Healthcare or my opening up 5000 square miles of Ocean to Maine, so why should this be any different. Not worth the work.”
Closing in on two weeks before the Nov. 3 national elections, the real threat of a Blue Wave accompanying a Biden win would entail a big swing from the GOP’s 53-47 Senate majority, and potentially has Democrats building on their 233-196 majority in the House. Even relatively secure Senate Republicans may be hedging their bets.
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Nebraska, as a member of the Judiciary Committee handled Supreme Court nominee Barrett with kid gloves earlier this week but criticized President Trump’s Thursday night Town Hall on NBC in a conference call to constituents, the Washington Examiner reports.
Trump “kisses dictators’ butts,” “sells out our allies” and “trash-talks evangelicals behind their backs,” Sasse reportedly said. He further slammed the president for “mistreating women” and initially “ignoring COVID.” Trump supporters will note that Sasse is considered an early contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, a race Donald Trump Jr. may fight if the GOP balance of power remains in his family’s orbit.
While having brushed off polls showing a huge deficit to former Vice President Biden for many weeks, Trump himself has predicted a repeat of his 2016 campaign performance, which means he’s closing in, especially in the final week. Four years ago Trump gained on Hillary Clinton after the former secretary of state led many polls only by four or five points, often within statistical error of a tie. This year, Trump must overcome landslide-style deficits nationally as well as large margins in battleground states, and even in erstwhile Republican strangleholds like Arizona and North Carolina, where Sens. Martha McSally and Thom Tillis face potential losses to their Democratic challengers.
Our right-column pundit thinks President Trump has a big chance of pulling off another upset, and our left-column pundit, having been gobsmacked by the 2016 election worries the argument holds many valid points.