Trump’s turmoil poses a conundrum for Republicans

In the wake of the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago estate, Donald Trump has boosted his fundraising, fired up his conservative supporters and helped vanquish Liz Cheney, arguably his biggest Republican foe.

But the former president’s return to the fore of America’s political stage, with a barrage of seething rhetoric and under a cloud of serious legal trouble, risks blunting the Republican party’s advantage heading into the midterm elections by alienating swing voters at a time when it was already showing signs of ebbing.

“He’s inflaming our politics continually, and it’s inflaming Republicans but also inflaming Democrats,” said Michael McDonald, a political-science professor at the University of Florida. “If he just stepped back . . . Republicans would have been in a much better position than they are right now. But he’s still exerting himself.”

The Mar-a-Lago search has coincided with two disturbing trends for Republicans who hoped to ride a “red wave” into November that would comfortably allow them to regain control of the House of Representatives and Senate on the back of high inflation and president Joe Biden’s low approval ratings.

Democrats have for the first time this year taken the lead in the generic congressional ballot, according to the average of polls assembled by Realclearpolitics.com, after trailing since last November.

Republican candidates backed by Trump in crucial Senate races are also unexpectedly underperforming their Democratic rivals — to the point that the Republican Senate leadership fund announced it would plough $28mn into television ads in Ohio to rescue the lacklustre performance by JD Vance, the venture capitalist author turned pro-Trump conservative in the state.

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different, they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” Mitch McConnell, the top Republican senator, conceded on Thursday.

The Democratic bounceback has much to do with renewed energy on the left in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the constitutional right to an abortion in June. It has also been helped by the fact that petrol prices have also been gradually falling throughout the summer.

Further, Trump’s overwhelming influence and continued presence in Republican politics is allowing Democrats to turn what would normally be a referendum on Biden’s performance into another “choice” election, like it was in 2020.

“You have a lot of Republicans who are going to follow Trump’s lead,” said McDonald. “That didn’t happen everywhere, but it happened in enough places, so that we now have candidates who are moving forward in general elections, and they’re unpopular.”

“Part of it is that they’re extreme, and part of it’s that they’re incompetent. Part of it is that Trump still is looming large. And so I think the January 6 hearings, and then the raid on Mar-a-Lago just underscored that Trump is damaged goods for most of the country,” he added.

Still, the former president is ploughing ahead with plans to launch his bid for a second term…