Endangered GOP senator: I don’t know for whom I’ll vote
Sen. Mark Kirk said Wednesday that he doesn’t know whom he will vote for in the White House race with less than two weeks to go until the election.
The Illinois Republican, one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents, previously said he would write in former CIA Director David Petraeus, but he demurred when asked whether that was still his plan.
{mosads}”I said that largely out of total frustration,” he told WBEZ, a local radio station. “The joke I’ve seen going around is, ‘If you had a rowboat and it sprung a leak with Hillary [Clinton] and [Donald] Trump in it and it sank, who would win?’”
Kirk has shifted on whom he would ultimately support for president. In addition to potentially writing in Petraeus, he also floated supporting former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
“I think I’ve been frustrated to look for someone who is much, much better than Trump or Hillary. I’m in one of those neither-one-correct categories,” Kirk added Wednesday, noting that the punch line to the joke is “America wins.”
Kirk became the first GOP senator up for reelection to announce that he would not support Trump amid backlash over his comments about the Mexican heritage of a federal judge overseeing a case involving Trump University.
Asked about why he broke with his party’s nominee, Kirk pointed to the incident, saying it “showed me that he was so ignorant of the key aspect of Americanism that our president should know about.”
He added that Trump’s call to deport the 11 million people in the U.S. illegally “is not realistic.”
Republican senators, especially those in blue or purple states, have tried to put distance between their races and the White House fight for months, working to win over moderate and independent voters they worry could be turned off by Trump.
GOP Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Rob Portman (Ohio) — who like Kirk are up for reelection — have also said they will not support Trump after a 2005 tape surfaced of the presidential nominee discussing trying to grope and kiss women without their consent.
Kirk wasn’t asked during Wednesday’s interview if he is now considering reversing his months-long stance and supporting Trump.
The incumbent senator is trailing his opponent, Democrat Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D), by an average of 7 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics.
Illinois has swung heavily toward Democrats in presidential election years. Democrats need to pick up five seats, or four if they also retain the White House, to win Senate control.
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