The battle for Congress unfolding 100 days before the midterm elections is a tale of two campaigns, playing out in two contrasting Americas that hold conflicting opinions of President Trump.
In the affluent suburbs, where educated professionals will decide control of the House, antipathy for Trump and flat-out exhaustion with his antics threatens to sink the Republican Party's 24-seat majority.
"To keep the majority, we have to persuade women suburban voters that the Republican candidate is different from what they see out of the White House," said Liesl Hickey, a GOP strategist and former executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party's House campaign arm.
"You have a lot of people out there living paycheck to paycheck, trying to assess whether things are getting better or not," Republican pollster David Winston added.
"Are things improving so that they're breaking out of that cycle? If that's the case then things look positive for Republicans. If that doesn't happen, then voters could be looking to just shake this up again."
The Senate majority runs through the exurbs and rural communities of culturally conservative America, territory where Trump performed better than Republican nominees before him precisely because of the jagged edges that have repelled so many suburbanites.
Instead of campaigns about the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, immigration, the national anthem, or loyalty to Trump, Democrats aim to make the central issues the failure of the tax overhaul to deliver significant increases in hourly wages; and voters' insecurity about healthcare and the opposition that has built up, ironically, to the Republican Party's unrealized promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/a-tale-of-two-campaigns-midterm-elections-100-days-out
In the affluent suburbs, where educated professionals will decide control of the House, antipathy for Trump and flat-out exhaustion with his antics threatens to sink the Republican Party's 24-seat majority.
"To keep the majority, we have to persuade women suburban voters that the Republican candidate is different from what they see out of the White House," said Liesl Hickey, a GOP strategist and former executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party's House campaign arm.
"You have a lot of people out there living paycheck to paycheck, trying to assess whether things are getting better or not," Republican pollster David Winston added.
"Are things improving so that they're breaking out of that cycle? If that's the case then things look positive for Republicans. If that doesn't happen, then voters could be looking to just shake this up again."
The Senate majority runs through the exurbs and rural communities of culturally conservative America, territory where Trump performed better than Republican nominees before him precisely because of the jagged edges that have repelled so many suburbanites.
Instead of campaigns about the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, immigration, the national anthem, or loyalty to Trump, Democrats aim to make the central issues the failure of the tax overhaul to deliver significant increases in hourly wages; and voters' insecurity about healthcare and the opposition that has built up, ironically, to the Republican Party's unrealized promise to repeal and replace Obamacare.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/a-tale-of-two-campaigns-midterm-elections-100-days-out
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