There is massive in-fighting within the Republican Party over the direction of the midterms. While the G.O.P. is still favored to take the House in the midterm elections in November, both former president Donald Trump and the abortion issue are scrambling the picture in ways that distress Republican insiders.
Top Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell complained about the “quality” of his party’s candidates while his deputies pointed fingers at Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who runs the party’s Senate campaign arm.
Donald Trump recently called for McConnell’s ouster and gave McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao weird, bizarre nicknames, including “Coco.”
Republicans have taken to television to complain about Trump’s hold over the Republican Party, distancing themselves from his document-handling protocols, or lack-there-of, and urging him to drop his obsession with the 2020 election, which he lost.
Establishment Republicans believe Trump’s focus on the election he lost two years ago is unhelpful to the electoral chances and could turn people against them.
There has been a litany of recent Republican complaints on Sunday political shows cantering around Trump. Some have signaled concern that the key issues, such as inflation and gas prices, are being overtaken and complicated by an all-encompassing attention grab by Trump.
There has been a shift in the political discussion on the Midterm election. Commentators and experts have gone from predicting Republicans would win every election in the midterms to predicting they won’t win any, and everywhere in between.
Part of the shift has been because abortion has become a huge issue. Democratic voters are more motivated than before since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Voters in solidly Republican states, such as Kansas, surprised analysts by roundly defeating measures to remove the right to an abortion from State Constitutions.
Another reason for Republicans to be nervous is that gasoline prices are finally declining, and the rate of inflation has slowed. Congress passed important and politically popular legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan gun-safety bill, and a law that creates financial incentives for semiconductor manufacturers to locate plants in America.
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