Democrat Senate candidates in key swing states are pleading to Trump voters for support – a bad sign for their own campaigns and a flashing warning sign to Kamala Harris.
In Michigan, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is openly courting voters who support Trump. In Pennsylvania, Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-PA) campaign released an ad showing Donald Trump signing a bill in the Oval Office, with the narrator touting Casey sided with Trump on his historic trade deal ending NAFTA. And in Wisconsin, leftwing Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s (D-WI) campaign released an ad broadcasting her alignment with Trump on trade policies.
Candidates on the ground often have a better sense of which way their states are leaning than pundits or polling. “Battle-tested” (as Punchbowl News called her) politico Slotkin and career politicians like Casey and Baldwin cozying up to Trump is a sign those candidates are not confident Harris is heading for victory – and are resorting to desperate measures to compensate for top-of-ticket weakness.
A victory in one of the three states likely means Trump is headed back to the White House. Trump victories in two or three of the states almost assures his electoral college win.
Slotkin, who is locked in a tight race with Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers, touted Michigan voters’ independent mindset at an event Thursday, as part of an appeal to swing voters who support Trump to split their ticket.
“The only reason I’m standing in front of you is because the very independently minded voters of Michigan voted for Donald Trump and Elissa Slotkin on the same ballot,” Slotkin said.
She regularly touts her service in a non-political CIA post during the George W. Bush administration as a bipartisan bona fide, although Republicans have ridiculed that characterization.
Slotkin has warned of Harris’s weakness in the state since soon after Harris deposed her boss President Joe Biden atop the ticket.
In late September, as Harris was riding high after a post-Democrat National Convention bump and still in her honeymoon phase, Slotkin warned donors that Harris was “underwater” in the state.
In Pennsylvania, where polls also show Trump and Harris neck-and-neck, Casey is shunning mention of Harris.
Casey’s ad notably does not show or mention the Vice President.
A Rasmussen poll released Monday shows Trump up three points over Harris in the Keystone State.
Casey, who keeps a low profile even for the sleepy Senate, has surrendered a big early lead as McCormick has continued his steady summer climb in the polls. That race is now deadlocked.
Wisconsin might be the biggest surprise, where Republican businessman Eric Hovde has transformed a race written off by Democrats into a dead heat. The Cook Political Report shifted the Wisconsin Senate race from “lean Democrat” to “toss up” just weeks before Election Day, and Republicans have poured money into the state in recent weeks they hope will bear fruit in the coming days.
Democrats “are in complete panic mode,” he told Breitbart News in October.
Baldwin’s ad, which touts Trump signing her “Made-in-America” bill, takes advantage of Trump’s reorientation of the nation’s trade policies.
That message has played well for Trump in blue-collar states Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – so well that Democrats are co-opting it.
The trio of Democrats are likely to continue echoing Trump’s policies as his Election Day stock continues to climb – polls show him in better position than 2020 and even 2016.
Whether or not they can convince voters to abandon the party that has championed those popular policies for the party that has fought them tooth and nail remains to be seen, and may determine if Trump can advance that policy agenda through Congress.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.