‘Anxious’ about Trump losing to Biden, House Republicans focus on their messaging for this year’s election: report
Major media outlets have been reporting that Republicans are not only worried about the possibility of former Vice President Joe Biden losing to President Donald Trump in November — they also fear that Democrats might achieve a majority in the U.S. Senate and expand their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. And House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is giving advice to House Republicans, offering tips on messaging for the 2020 election.
In Axios, journalist Alayna Treene reports that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has “given his GOP colleagues new marching orders for stump speeches between now and November, as incumbents worry about how President Trump's own challenges may strain their reelection bids.”
On Thursday, July 30, Treene notes, McCarthy gave a PowerPoint presentation to fellow Republicans from the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C. and offered messaging tips; some House Republicans joined in via Zoom. And on Friday morning, July 31, he followed up with an e-mail.
According to Treene, McCarthy is encouraging Republicans to emphasize “the three R’s”: renew, restore, rebuild —that is, “renew the American Dream” and “restore our way of life” as well as “rebuild the greatest economy ever.” And the House minority leader recommends that Republicans label Democrats with “the three Ds”: defund, dismantle, destroy ” — as in (1) “defund our police, border patrol and military,” (2) “dismantle our social, economic and political institutions” and (3) “destroy our small businesses and entrepreneurs with crushing taxes and regulation.”
House Republicans, Treene reports, “have been anxious about polling showing Trump trailing Joe Biden in key swing states. Some ‘were scared’ when Trump didn’t have a good answer upon being asked in a recent interview to detail his second term strategy, one GOP lawmaker said.”
