WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans nervously eyeing the White House race are learning a lesson with Donald Trump that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell painfully experienced in 2010 and 2012. Faulty outsider candidates blew several perfectly winnable Senate elections those years.
For Republicans, Trump is reminiscent of Senate candidates like Richard Mourdock of Indiana and Todd Akin of Missouri, who defeated establishment favorites in GOP primaries in 2012 only to lose in November.
Since then, the crafty Kentuckian has tried to make all the right moves. McConnell, the top fundraiser and field general for the Senate GOP, helped orchestrate the 2014 midterm romp that delivered the Senate back to his party.
The GOP was until recently cautiously optimistic that it would retain control of the Senate, but Trump’s latest scandal could pull the party down