NRSC Weekly Rundown: Trump Destroys Tester, High Five Heidi Gets A Jingle, Dems’ Rising Extremism and more!
And here’s this week’s edition of the NRSC Weekly Rundown:
#SCOTUS: Kamala Harris went on MSNBC and proudly proclaimed that EVERYSenate Democrat is “prepared to play hardball” and block any individual President Trump nominates to the Supreme Court. But a new poll from NBC News released this week found that 62% of Americans want the Senate to vote on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee before the midterm elections this November. Red state Democrats need to tell voters whether they’re willing to go against the majority of Americans to side with radical Dems who are auditioning to be the face of the resistance.
#MTSen: In an act of desperation, Jon Tester took out more than a dozen full-page ads in local newspapers bragging about legislation President Trump signed and thanking him for his work on veterans. But Trump ripped into Tester at a campaign rally in Great Falls, telling Montanans that they “deserve a senator who doesn’t just talk like he’s from Montana. You deserve a senator who actually votes like he’s from Montana.” The President continued, saying, “A vote for Jon Tester is a vote for Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and the new leader of the Democrat Party, Maxine Waters.” President Trump’s barrage single-handedly tore apart Tester’s pathetic attempts to portray himself as an ally of the Trump administration in his increasingly difficult reelection campaign – and headlines across Montana and the country took note.
#MOSen: Claire McCaskill was back on the road for another leg of her “RV” Tour, and the Air Claire ground crew tagged along to make sure she had a smooth landing as she was chauffeured to and from her private plane between campaign stops.
#NDSen: The NRSC released a new radio ad featuring a High Five Heidi jingle attacking Heidi Heitkamp’s despicable high five celebration on the Senate floor with Chuck Schumer after voting against the five-month abortion ban. President Trumpsaid it best during his rally in Fargo when he told the crowd, “You need a senator who doesn’t just talk like she’s from North Dakota. You need a senator who votes like she’s from North Dakota.” In an interview this week, Heitkamp flip-flopped on her long-standing opposition to President Trump’s border wall, saying, “we need to deploy smart strategies, some of that is in fact the wall.” Yet Heitkamp has frequently criticized the wall and voted against funding it in Congress.
#FLSen: A new poll shows that Governor Rick Scott is far more popular and better known among Puerto Ricans in Florida than Bill Nelson, despite Nelson being in Congress for 30 years. Just a day after the poll was released, Nelson quickly announced he would attend the Audiencia Latina event in Orlando later that day. Nelson’s pathetic pandering is just like when he rushed to release his first Spanish language ad shortly after an article came out ripping him for his failure to reach out to Florida’s Hispanic communities. Nelson visited Lake Okeechobee communities this week to discuss the toxic algae bloom, and funding for repairs to the dike. But Nelson didn’t highlight his failure to secure funding to repair the federally operated dike despite spending decades in elected office. Making matters more difficult for the Senator, the Tampa Bay Times reported Nelson already expects to oppose President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, even before anyone has been named.
#AZSen: Kyrsten Sinema has sent multiple fundraising emails urging voters to give to her campaign in order to “elect more senators who share our values.” But she still hasn’t made a peep about whether, if elected, she would side with partisan Democrats who are promising to obstruct ANY Supreme Court nominee President Trump puts forward. Sinema also made a ham-handed attempt to pander, claiming she would vote against Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer if elected to the Senate, despite cashing in on more than $10,000 in campaign contributions from him and being a loyal vote for his agenda in Congress. Since Sinema says she isn’t voting for Schumer, will she tell him to cancel the millions his super PAC plans to spend on TV to support her before November?
#WVSen: This week Joe Manchin warned President Trump against appointing a pro-life judge to the Supreme Court. This is just the latest episode in Manchin’s transformation into a darling of pro-abortion groups. Manchin had previously earned applause for his votes in favor of continued taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s leading provider of abortions. Question is, will Manchin side with his far-left party leadership and pro-abortion advocates to obstruct President Trump’s nominee? Or will he side with the West Virginians who want him to support the President’s nominee to the Court?
#WISen: Tammy Baldwin released a new TV ad this week in which she shamelessly tries to tie herself to Wisconsin’s booming economy, looking directly at the camera saying, “there are millions of jobs in America that need to be filled” and going on about job training legislation that she couldn’t even get passed into law. But Baldwin failed to mention that those millions of jobs in America “that need to be filled” were created, no thanks to her, by the tax cuts she voted against last year. Wisconsinites won’t be fooled by Baldwin’s desperate attempts to take credit for the successes of President Trump or her utter lack of accomplishments in the Senate.
NEWS AND NOTES:
Fox News: Trump’s birthday gift to America – A booming economy
Well, the data are piling in. Corporate taxes have been cut to internationally competitive levels. Middle class folks are paying less, and deregulation well underway. The result? Businesses are more confident and investing again, consumers are confident and spending again, and the U.S economy is poised for its first 3 percent growth year since 2005. READ
NBC News: Poll: Most want vote on Trump Supreme Court nominee before midterms
A majority of Americans believe the Republican-led Senate should vote on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee before the November midterm elections, undercutting the Democratic argument that it should be delayed until after the pivotal fall elections, according to a new NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll. READ
Washington Times: Political pickle: Supreme Court vacancy puts red-state Democrats in a big campaign quandary
Red-state Democrats seeking re-election this fall were already facing the difficult task of navigating between their own virulently anti-Trump national party and the Republican-leaning voters needed to win back home. But that narrow path has become even more of a tightrope now that incumbents will be asked to take sides on the president’s impending Supreme Court nomination. READ
Washington Examiner: Six months in, tax cuts are already providing historic gains for minorities, women, and small businesses
When Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December, congressional Democrats denounced the legislation as a reckless attempt to help wealthy corporations at the expense of everyone else. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., famously dismissed the law’s benefits to most taxpayers as “crumbs.” Six months later, many of the groups Pelosi and other Democrats warned would be worse off as a result of the tax reform legislation — including minorities, women, and small businesses — are not only thriving, they are experiencing some of the most notable economic growth in the country’s history. READ
New York Post: ‘Abolish ICE’ Is A Sign Of The Left’s Rising Extremism
It’s becoming the new litmus test of the Democratic Party’s resurgent left: As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it soon after her upset primary win over the No. 4 House Democrat, “If they’re not actively calling for the abolition of ICE . . . they need to go.” Now, spurred by last weekend’s celebrity-driven protests against the breakup of families at the border, ambitious Democrats are hopping aboard the bandwagon. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand and Mayor de Blasio, among others, are all calling for Immigration Customs and Enforcement to be shut down. READ
Las Vegas Review-Journal: EDITORIAL: Calls to ‘abolish ICE’ are ignorant and inane
At this point, it’s clear that far-left Democrats are using the issue of family separation to push for little to no enforcement of our immigration laws. Mr. Trump often asserts that Democrats want open borders. This latest dust-up reveals he may not be far off. Polls show the calls to abolish ICE are politically foolish, as Americans oppose eliminating the agency by a 2-to-1 ratio. READ
Washington Examiner: It’s not ‘both sides’: Democrats far more partisan in SCOTUS votes
The four Democrat-appointed justices currently on the Supreme Court received a combined 88 affirmative votes from Republican senators, while receiving 79 negative votes. That means, on average, a majority of Republican senators voted to confirm the nominations of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Steven Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, while 48 percent were No votes. Do the same math for Democratic senators voting on Republican nominees, and you get a different result: Of all the votes by Senate Democrats in consideration of the four Republican nominees, 79 percent were in opposition. That is, barely a fifth of Democratic senators were willing to support the nominations of Justices Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch. READ
Say Anything Blog: Republicans Set to Release “High Five Heidi” Jingle Ad Which Sounds Like Those Annoying Subway Ads
It’s that time of year where the political campaigns begin carpet bombing the electorate with advertising, thus this little jingle from the National Republican Senatorial Committee which is about to be piledrived into your cerebral cortex. READ
Florida Politics: Another Rick Scott Ad Lambastes Bill Nelson For Voting With Dems On Judicial Nominations
Following on the “Rubber Stamp” ad rolled out earlier this week, “Toe the Line” hammers home the likelihood that Nelson won’t support that nomination, linking it to a career record of voting with former Sen. Hillary Clinton and Pres. Barack Obama, heeding “party bosses” in the bargain. The spot also notes that Nelson did not oppose any of the 700+ judges nominated by Democratic Presidents. READ
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