{"id":1038,"date":"2018-06-02T13:17:20","date_gmt":"2018-06-02T17:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=1038"},"modified":"2018-06-02T13:17:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-02T17:17:20","slug":"senate-republicans-are-newly-hopeful-about-the-midterms-for-good-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=1038","title":{"rendered":"Senate Republicans Are Newly Hopeful About the Midterms. For Good Reason."},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0Jonathan Martin\u00a0 \u00a0June 2, 2018<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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Josh Hawley, the attorney general of Missouri, at an April event for his Republican bid for Senate. He could prosper politically now that the state\u2019s scandal-tarred Republican governor has resigned.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Nick Schnelle for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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WASHINGTON \u2014 After a turbulent first year confronting friendly fire from President Trump, Senate Republicans are entering the summer before the midterm elections feeling more hopeful about retaining their narrow majority than at any time since the president\u2019s election. And for good reason.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Mr. Trump is enjoying\u00a0a modest increase in his approval ratings<\/a>\u00a0this year and, as important,\u00a0is attacking Democrats<\/a>\u00a0rather than inciting the internecine feuds that could depress Republican turnout. The economy continues to grow, as demonstrated by Friday\u2019s\u00a0unexpectedly strong jobs report<\/a>, while unemployment has fallen to levels unseen since 2000.<\/p>\n

Republicans, already on the offensive thanks to a Senate map that includes 10 Democratic-held seats in states Mr. Trump won, have seen nearly every electoral variable turn in their direction in recent months: They have\u00a0averted disaster in the West Virginia primary<\/a>, successfully recruited their preferred candidates in North Dakota and Florida, and watched\u00a0a renegade Republican challenger wane<\/a>\u00a0in one of Mississippi\u2019s two Senate races.<\/p>\n

This past week brought two developments that drew little attention for their Senate implications but could prove pivotal in November.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri resigned<\/a>\u00a0rather than face a felony computer tampering charge, depriving Democrats of a political weapon they had hoped to wield in the Senate race there. (A felony invasion of privacy charge against Mr. Greitens, who was accused of sexual misconduct, was dropped weeks earlier.) And the ailing Senator John McCain remains in office, passing a crucial deadline that all but ensures there will be only one Senate seat up for grabs in Arizona.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Republican caucus in the Senate is feeling substantially more optimistic now than at this time last year,\u201d said Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, predicting his party will gain a handful of seats.<\/p>\n

Not everyone in the G.O.P. is as bullish, with worries that\u00a0the president\u2019s capacity for political self-sabotage<\/a>, the Democrats\u2019 fund-raising advantage and the anti-Trump intensity propelling the left will make it difficult to do much more than break even and protect its one-seat Senate majority.<\/p>\n

But that Republicans are even discussing the prospect of gaining Senate seats, in the first midterm campaign of a president whose approval rating has never reached 50 percent, illustrates the wildly divergent electoral landscapes for the House and the Senate.<\/p>\n

While the fight for control of the House is playing out mainly in the affluent and highly educated suburban districts that have been hotbeds of anti-Trump fervor, many of them on the coasts, the Senate campaign is taking place on much more Trump-friendly terrain. Six of the most competitive Senate races are in states he carried by double digits: Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia. (Democrats hold all of those seats except Tennessee\u2019s.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n