By Matea Gold and Paul Kane March 23 at 6:59 PM
Establishment Republicans and their big-money allies are rushing to build a multistate defense system to protect Senate and House candidates, fearing that the party could lose its hold on Congress if Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket in November.
The anxiety about Trump’s potential spillover effect on down-ballot races was underscored Wednesday when House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin lamented the “disheartened” state of the campaign and criticized the “identity politics” on display in the increasingly toxic race for the GOP presidential nomination.
The efforts are being driven by major players such as the Koch brothers’ political network, which has already begun laying groundwork in Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania, along with the Crossroads organizations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The behemoth Koch operation — which aims to spend almost $900 million before the November elections — is now considering abandoning Trump as a nominee and focusing its resources on behalf of GOP congressional candidates.
A key element of the strategy will be a springtime wave of television ads that slam Democratic contenders and tout Republican incumbents as attuned to hometown concerns. Strategists hope the efforts will help inoculate congressional candidates against association with Trump’s incendiary remarks.
“If there are crosscurrents that are potentially harmful, the most important thing you can do is aggressively localize the race — the things that matter back home, the problems you’re solving,” said Steven Law, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who leads the American Crossroads super PAC and a suite of related groups.
In New Hampshire, Law’s advocacy group One Nation began a $1 million ad campaign this week praising Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) for seeking “bipartisan solutions” to fight the heroin crisis in her state. In Ohio, the Freedom Partners Action Fund, a super PAC financed by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and other conservative donors, is running a TV spot attacking Democratic candidate and former governor Ted Strickland for tax increases during his administration.
The groups are being bolstered by some of the party’s biggest donors and fundraisers, many of whom have turned their funds toward congressional Republicans after seeing their favored candidates forced out of the White House race.
“The biggest concern for me is the next Supreme Court justice and that we do not lose the Senate,” said Idaho nutritional-supplement executive Frank VanderSloot, who had backed Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and is now giving large sums to congressionally focused groups. “If Donald Trump is the nominee, we could see a lot of people staying home.”
[Again: Nothing is off limits for Donald Trump, including spouses]
Mike Shields, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC allied with House leadership, said nearly every conversation he has had with donors lately centers on the need for a firewall.
“What they see at the top of the ticket has a lot of them concerned,” Shields said. “They’re saying, ‘We’ve got to keep the House; we’ve got to keep the Senate.’ ”
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