With Senate Republicans on the brink of retaking their majority, former President Trump is stepping up pressure on Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
When President Trump met with Republican senators last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called on President Trump to do more to “smack” two incumbent Democrats. Republicans only need to defeat one more senator, on top of the widely expected Senate victory of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R), to retake the Senate in the fall.
Trump seems ready to comply.
“I think he’s observed how they’ve all suddenly become fervent supporters of Trump in their respective states recently,” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, said of the two Democrats who must appeal to Republican voters in the ruby-red state.
He said Republican lawmakers are calling on Trump to correct the record directly to voters.
But defeating Tester and Brown won’t be easy for Republicans, who are relying on candidates Tim Sheehy and Bernie Moreno, respectively, as incumbents seen as battle-hardened senators who overcame tough reelection battles, including in a presidential election year, to come out on the other side.
But neither of their Senate victories came when Trump was the front-runner, and Republicans see that as a tough mountain to overcome: Tester won Montana by just 3.5 points, while Trump beat Biden there by 16 points in 2020. Similarly, in Ohio, Brown won his last reelection bid by about 7 points, while Trump won by 8 points in 2020.
Graham told the former president during a meeting at Senate Republican campaign headquarters on Thursday that he outperformed Sheehy, Moreno and all of the rest of the GOP Senate candidates running against several well-funded incumbents.
“We recognize that his success is our success,” Graham told reporters. “I said, ‘Mr. President, you are doing better than any Republican candidate for the Senate in every state that matters to us in terms of us getting a majority. We’re in this fight together.'”
“The path to a Senate majority is also the path to the White House,” he added.
Still, Democrats are quick to point out that Trump has plenty of work to do in key presidential battleground states, and that Montana and Ohio may not be his top priorities. They also point out that Trump has had little success in recent Senate elections, where Republicans failed to win majorities when Trump ran in 2020 or again in 2022 when many of his nominees lost the general election.
“Senator Herschel Walker [in office]”Moreno and Sheehy have a lot of weaknesses,” said a Democratic activist with experience in Senate races.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Republican leaders have repeatedly warned that defeating well-funded incumbents will not be easy, but Republicans are increasingly optimistic that Montana offers their best chance and that the party can pick up another seat.
Tester has a unique brand that has worked to his advantage in Big Sky Country, but Republicans argue that what helped him win in 2018 will now hurt him. Many Republicans argue that Sheehy is a stronger candidate than Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) was six years ago, and that the electoral environment will almost certainly be favorable for Republicans this time around.
“I think Tester is totally dead at this point and I don’t understand the math of bringing him back,” a senior Republican National Committee official told The Hill, adding that Trump’s increased involvement would be “clearly positive” and “can’t do any harm.”
Tester’s supporters dispute that claim.
“We do the same thing every six years. Republicans say Jon Tester is weak and they use the same strategy,” said a Democratic strategist with ties to Montana. “I know how much they want to portray Jon as a weak incumbent, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a Washington fantasy. They make it up every six years.”
Meanwhile, in Ohio, a national Republican strategist argued that Democrats could “go the Romney route” with Moreno and make him “look like an enemy of the working class.”
“There will be a significant number of people voting for Trump/Brown. The problem is, [Moreno] Will they maintain that margin?’” the official said.
“Challenges remain: Can Bernie Moreno gain some independence?” they added.
A Republican activist with ties to the Moreno campaign disputed that statement, pointing out that at this time in the last election cycle, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) was trailing former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) by double digits, while Moreno was trailing by just five points, and adding that Brown was already running negative ads.
“Any smart operative knows that as name-matching unfolds across the state in the fall, Sherrod Brown’s blind loyalty to Biden will be exposed and pro-Trump candidate Bernie Moreno’s campaign will gain momentum,” the operative continued. “Brown will have a hard time holding on in November.”
Republicans are also quick to point out that many of the ads Brown’s campaign has run so far are the kind of ads that would encourage people to consider running for the Republican nomination, highlighting this most recent one: Focus on hollowed-out automobile factoriesAffected workers and Brown’s activities Mandating the use of American steel For all federally funded infrastructure projects.
An outside group with ties to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Recent AdsBrown has worked with Trump to highlight anti-drug laws aimed at preventing fentanyl and other drugs from entering the U.S. It’s that message that has lawmakers pushing Trump to increasingly go after these states.
“Obviously, our folks were interested in making sure that Trump got his facts straight and that people in those states understood who he was supporting and that there was no confusion,” Thune said. “There are a lot of references in the campaign to places that strongly suggest they’re in agreement with Trump and that they’re friends and collaborators and so on.”
“The difference will probably become clearer over time,” he added.
