“Now that primary season is coming to an end, will Republicans start separating themselves from Trump? Some probably don’t need to do so to win reelection. Despite his national unpopularity, senators in more Trump-leaning states, such as Ernst in Iowa and Daines in Montana, may be able to survive with a standard partisan vote” writes Matt Grossman in FiveThirtyEight.
“But McSally, Collins, Gardner in Colorado and Tillis in North Carolina likely need to earn a substantial number of votes from Biden supporters to survive. It’s just not clear whether they will break with Trump in public ways or whether late breaks would be enough to help them win. That said, they may have one option to rally both the Republican faithful and a few swing voters. It turns out some voters fear giving unified government to the president’s party and desire some balance. If voters expect a Democratic president, they are slightly more likely to support Republicans in Congress, which could perhaps keep the Senate in GOP hands. So terrible Trump polls could be turned into something useful by Republican senators. They might eventually need to argue that, if Trump is going to lose, voters should trust them to serve as a check on the Democratic agenda.”