Axios co-founder Mike Allen told CNBC Thursday that some Republicans believe President Donald Trump is hurting the party’s chances in next week’s Georgia Senate qualifiers.
“There’s a lot of thought tension among Republicans that President Trump is sabotaging this race. He’s done so much to be useless to those candidates,” Allen told Squawk Box, referring to GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.
“I talk to Republicans and look at what’s going on, and they tell me,‘ You know, you must be thinking, ‘I want to send a message, if I’m not at the polls, Republicans are in trouble,’ ”he added. Allen, a longtime political journalist in Washington.
Allen’s comments come ahead of Tuesday’s major election, which will determine the balance of power in the U.S. Senate. Loeffler runs against Democrat Raphael Warnock, while Perdue’s opponent is Democrat Jon Ossoff. Trump campaigned for Loeffler and Perdue earlier this month, and is scheduled to hold another rally in the state on Monday.
Republicans only need to win one race to maintain a 100-seat Senate majority; the Republican Party currently has a 50-48 advantage, including two independents arguing with Democrats.
If both Democrats win in Georgia, that would tip the scales in favor of their party because Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tiebreaker vote. It would also mean Democrats would control both houses of Congress in addition to the White House after President-elect Joe Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20. Biden defeated Trump in the Nov. 3 election, helped in part by his victory in Georgia. Biden was the first Democrat to win the state since 1992.
“Maintaining a Republican majority in the Senate has been a priority for the president from the beginning,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in a statement Thursday to CNBC. “He will rally voters to support Senators Perdue and Loeffler and warn that his opponents are left-wing extremists who support higher taxes, the New Deal Green that breaks jobs and the amnesty for 11 million d ‘illegal aliens’.
Allen, who co-founded Politico before launching Axios in January 2017, said Republicans had been initially confident that Loeffler and Perdue would defeat their challenging Democrats. Georgia, despite winning the president-elect, is still pretty red, so Republicans said, ‘In the end, that could be okay.’ They’re no longer sure it’s okay, and a lot of that has to do with see the president, ”Allen said.
Trump has refused to grant the election to Biden and falsely claimed he lost the race due to massive election fraud. He has also attacked numerous elected Republicans in Georgia, including Gov. Brian Kemp, for his election management.
Trump has also been pressuring Congress to increase stimulus checks on Americans to $ 2,000, maintaining a $ 900 billion coronavirus relief package that contained direct payments of $ 600 for days before finally signing it. . He has continued to push for $ 2,000 checks, a Democrat-backed proposal that is unpopular with Republicans in the Senate.
Ossoff and Warnock quickly seized on Trump’s lawsuit last week and used it to assault their opponents. Loeffler and Perdue, however, have supported Trump’s proposal for $ 2,000 checks.
“Republicans look at it and say,‘ Like President Trump, every day, he says something that puts those candidates in place or makes some of those … voters who were upset with Trump anyway, but who are Republicans in their bones every day gives them a reason not to go out or to decide to go the other way, ”Allen said.
CNBC contacted the Loeffler and Perdue campaigns, as well as the White House, to comment on Allen’s statements.