Conservative tells GOP donors to 'focus on the Senate' as it’s 'unlikely' Trump will win
Many Democratic strategists and organizers have been warning that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the 2024 presidential race but Republicans flip the U.S. Senate, a Harris administration would have a difficult time getting cabinet nominees confirmed —especially if Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Kentucky) successor as Senate GOP leader turns out to be even more of a hardliner.
Moreover, they warn, a Republican Senate majority could prevent Harris from adding any Democratic justices to the U.S. Supreme Court should she defeat Donald Trump in November and have any High Court vacancies.
In an opinion column published by the Washington Post on August 29, conservative journalist Jim Geraghty — known for his work for the National Review — is bullish on the GOP's chances of retaking the Senate but not on Trump's chances of defeating Harris.
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"Summing up: the odds are good that if elected, Harris will be dealing with a narrow GOP Senate majority," Geraghty explains. "This won't stop her from moving federal policies to the left through executive orders and judicial appointments. But a considerable amount of her agenda will be abated."
The conservative writer adds, "Republican donors and activists should concentrate on making this happen and on driving up the Senate score. And there's no point in waiting for help from the presidential nominee."
Geraghty lays out a variety of reasons why he believes that Trump is "unlikely" to win in November. And he isn't optimistic about the possibility of former Nikki Haley voters supporting Trump in big numbers.
The former South Carolina governor, who was highly critical of Trump during the final weeks of her GOP presidential primary campaign, endorsed him when she spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. But the group Haley Voters for Harris is encouraging fellow Republicans to vote against Trump and considers Harris — policy differences and all — the better choice.
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"Of the roughly 4.3 million people who voted for Nikki Haley in this year's Republican presidential primaries, about 1.2 million of them live in the swing or competitive states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin," Geraghty writes. "They might be the ones to decide how strong the GOP will be come January — yet Trump has expressed little to no interest in courting this demographic."
Geraghty continues, "It is unlikely that these Haley voters will be won over by a nominee who spends his convention address talking about the performance of the Green Bay Packers, who publicly denounces the Republican governor of a swing state, who contends he didn't know Harris was Black, who keeps insisting that his crowds are bigger than those for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington, who goes on at length about the pronunciation of CNN anchor Dana Bash's name, and so on."
The conservative journalist stresses that although a "compelling, policy-based argument" against Harris can be made, a "78-year-old candidate with the attention span of a toddler is proving incapable of making it."
"I, for one, would love to see Trump debate Harris while under the effects of attention-focusing Ritalin," Geraghty argues. "Disaffected Republicans, exhausted with a presidential nominee who seems determined to throw away every opportunity, might find it more worthwhile to focus their efforts elsewhere: building the strongest possible Republican majority in the Senate."
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Read Jim Geraghty's full Washington Post column at this link (subscription required).
