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These Vulnerable Republican Senators Have All Endorsed Trump, And Voters Aren’t Happy

From left to right, McCain, Portman, Toomey, Ayotte, Johnson. (Toomey has not yet endorsed.) CREDIT: AP PHOTOS
From left to right, McCain, Portman, Toomey, Ayotte, Johnson. (Toomey has not yet endorsed.) CREDIT: AP PHOTOS

New polling released by Public Policy Polling provides perhaps the strongest evidence yet that embattled Republican senators’ reelection chances are being hurt by Donald Trump’s presence at the top of the ticket.

In four races where Republicans face tough reelection contests — Arizona (John McCain), New Hampshire (Kelly Ayotte), Wisconsin (Ron Johnson), and Ohio (Rob Portman) — the survey indicates incumbents have been hurt by their endorsement of Trump. In fact, in each state more than twice as many voters said their senator’s support for Trump made them less likely to vote for their reelection as opposed to more likely.

In Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey (R) has not endorsed Trump, but 40 percent of respondents said if he backed Trump, they would be less likely to vote for him, compared to 22 percent who said the opposite.

Trump’s racist attacks on federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel didn’t help matters any. In all five states with the exception of Arizona, a plurality of voters responded affirmatively when asked if their senator should follow the lead of embattled Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), and un-endorse Trump in light of his comments about Curiel’s Mexican heritage. (In Arizona, 41 percent said McCain should unendorse Trump, compared to 42 who think he shouldn’t).

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Polling was conducted on June 8–9. On June 7, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) called Trump’s comments about Curiel “sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment.” Later in the day, Kirk became the first Republican member of Congress to rescind his endorsement of Trump, saying his Curiel comments “in context with past attacks on Hispanics, women and the disabled like me, make it certain that I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee for President regardless of the political impact on my candidacy or the Republican Party.”

Here’s PPP’s synopsis of their polling, which includes details about how poorly McCain’s refusal to distance himself from Trump is playing with the state’s large block of Latino voters.

PPP Memo by MoveOn

While the polling was commissioned by the liberal MoveOn.org Political Action group, it was conducted by PPP, which has established a reputation for accuracy. FiveThirtyEight’s Pollster Ratings gives PPP a B+ grade, which puts the firm on par with CBS News/New York Times, Pew Research Centers, and CNN/Opinion Research Corp. Gallup, for instance, ranks below PPP with a B mark.

Republicans currently hold 54 seats in the Senate. Democrats hold 44, and independents hold two. But of the 34 seats up for election this year, 24 are currently held by Republicans, and as the Washington Post notes, seven of those 24 are in states that supported Barack Obama both in 2008 and 2012.

Update:

An earlier version of this post incorrectly said Toomey had endorsed Trump. He earlier indicated that he was likely to back the party nominee, but has not done so.