Tornado Alley (PROG)

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New alarm among Republicans that Democrats could win big this year

PowerPost
By Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Sean Sullivan January 14 at 7:00 AM

A raft of retirements, difficulty recruiting candidates and President Trump’s continuing pattern of throwing his party off message have prompted new alarm among Republicans that they could be facing a Democratic electoral wave in November.

The concern has grown so acute that Trump received what one congressional aide described as a “sobering” slide presentation about the difficult midterm landscape at Camp David last weekend, leading the president to pledge a robust schedule of fundraising and campaign travel in the coming months, White House officials said.

But the trends have continued, and perhaps worsened, since that briefing, with two more prominent Republican House members announcing plans to retire from vulnerable seats and a would-be recruit begging off a Senate challenge to Democrat Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota despite pressure from Trump to run.

And by the end of the week, many Republicans were scrambling to distance themselves from the president after he spoke of “shithole countries” during an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers about immigration policy. Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah), a rising star in the party who faces a strong Democratic challenge this year, quickly denounced Trump for apparently denigrating Haiti, the birthplace of both her parents, during the Oval Office discussion.

“The president must apologize to both the American people and the nations he so wantonly maligned,” Love demanded — creating a model, perhaps, for Republicans in competitive races to try to separate from Trump as a survival strategy.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/new-alarm-among-republicans-that-democrats-could-win-big-this-year/2018/01/13/9be31acc-f8a8-11e7-beb6-c8d48830c54d_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_wave-8am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.d2b690e507c4

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‘The wave versus the map’: Democratic control of Senate moves from preposterous to possible

By Paul Kane January 13

The possibility that Democrats could win the Senate in 2018 seemed preposterous a year ago, given President Trump’s stunning victory and the basic math facing a party defending three times as many seats as Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

Not anymore. The debate has grown over Democrats’ chances of capturing control of the agenda and holding power over Trump’s nominations, including potential vacancies on the Supreme Court.

The dispute pits the practitioners of big data against those who also scout candidates and measure broader political atmosphere to make their bets.

Both sides agree Democrats face a narrow path to gain two seats needed to reclaim the majority — but there is a debate over just how narrow.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/wave-versus-the-map-democratic-control-of-senate-moves-from-preposterous-to-possible/2018/01/13/82064a1e-f7ce-11e7-beb6-c8d48830c54d_story.html?utm_term=.ca9a7d67aaa2