Trump may have stopped the bleeding, but
not the worrying
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[October 10, 2016]
By James Oliphant
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump may
have done just enough in Sunday’s presidential debate to keep his leaky
presidential campaign afloat - and that may have put Republicans
considering abandoning him in an even tougher position.
Had Trump imploded, the flow of lawmakers and party luminaries who
deserted him at the weekend over lewd comments he made about women on a
videotape likely would have become a torrent, increasing demands for him
to drop out of the race.
But that didn't happen. Now, Republicans who have seen their party torn
apart by Trump's candidacy are once again faced with a familiar dilemma:
Publicly abandon a badly wounded candidate who is endangering closely
contested congressional races or stand behind him in the dimming hope
that he can still win them the White House.
The Manhattan real-estate mogul delivered a feistier and more
disciplined performance than at the first debate, hammering his
Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton on her use of a private email server
while she was secretary of state, and again raising decades-old
accusations of sexual misconduct against her husband Bill Clinton.
That likely endeared him to the rowdy supporters who have packed arenas
across the country for more than a year while perhaps doing little to
reel in the more moderate voters in swing states that his campaign will
need to defeat Clinton in the Nov. 8 election.
“His no-holds barred approach to Hillary tonight is what conservatives
have wanted to see out of a candidate since Bill Clinton was in office,”
said Craig Robinson, former political director of the Iowa Republican
Party. “The Republican base and talk radio will love this performance.”
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But the party is still hitched to a deeply flawed candidate who has
especially struggled with women, college-educated, and suburban voters.
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed close to 20 percent of Americans were
still undecided on which candidate to support. Sixty percent of those
were women.
A poll taken by CNN immediately following the debate showed Republicans
have reason to be anxious. Viewers said Clinton had beaten Trump in the
encounter, 57 percent to 34 percent.
The furor over the 2005 videotape, in which Trump bragged about groping
and trying to seduce women, led dozens of lawmakers to denounce him,
including Arizona Senator John McCain. Their condemnation plunged the
party into its worst crisis since the resignation of President Richard
Nixon, a Republican, in 1974.
The House Republican Conference, a body comprised of the almost 250
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, was set to meet on
Monday to discuss the foundering Trump campaign, a House leadership aide
said. House Speaker Paul Ryan pointedly disinvited Trump for a joint
appearance in Wisconsin that had been scheduled for Saturday following
publication of the tape.
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![](../images/101016PICS/news_n19.jpg)
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump listens as
Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks during
their presidential town hall debate with at Washington University in
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., October 9, 2016. REUTERS/Shannon
Stapleton
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All but six of the 40 Republican officeholders whose races are
considered competitive in the election have condemned Trump’s
comments in the video, although only three members of that group
have called for him to drop out.
RED MEAT FOR THE BASE
Since the release of the video, the party's governing body, the
Republican National Committee, has offered no guidance to local
party officials on how to handle questions about it.
“There hasn’t been one email or one phone call or anything as to
what the guidance is from the RNC going forward,” said an RNC
official who asked to remain unidentified.
The tape intensified talk in Republican circles about diverting
funds from Trump to prop up House and Senate candidates who might
find themselves in newfound jeopardy because of the backlash.
“It’s well past time to cut all ties with Trump and focus on
preserving the Republican Congress and down ballot offices.
Immediately,” said John Weaver, a veteran Republican strategist.
Republican officials have another worry: that Trump's unpopularity
may lead many Republican voters to stay at home on Election Day.
Against this backdrop of panic and condemnation, Trump on Sunday
sought to rally the party's base with a fresh barrage of provocative
attacks on Clinton that will give the media something other than the
tape to talk about.
He offered a blistering critique of her handling of foreign policy
while the country's chief diplomat and brought his rally cry for her
to be jailed to the debate stage. He also carried out a threat to
make an issue of her husband's sexual history.
In doing so, Trump may have stopped the bleeding, but he did nothing
to stop the worrying.
(Reporting by James Oliphant, Amanda Becker, Emily Flitter, Ginger
Gibson, Steve Holland. Writing by James Oliphant, editing by Paul
Thomasch and Ross Colvin)
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