Trump questions consume GOP

Republican lawmakers returning to Washington are being bombarded with questions about whether their party is coming apart over Donald Trump.

Many are undecided over whether to support Trump, their presumptive presidential nominee, creating a schism in the party unlike anything seen in modern politics.

{mosads}The top two leaders in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), are divided over backing Trump ahead of meetings with the businessman on Thursday. 

The second-place finisher in the GOP race, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), has shown no signs of an imminent Trump endorsement.

And a group of influential conservatives led by Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, and Erick Erickson, a writer and radio host, are scrambling to find a third-party alternative.

Republican lawmakers worry that some of Trump’s positions, such as banning Muslims from entering the country and building a wall along the southern border, will sink the GOP brand.

But only a few are willing to say so publicly, fearing a backlash from his supporters.

“To the extent that people coalesce around our presumptive nominee, if people assume that those are our policy positions, that’s troubling, it really is,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who is not endorsing Trump. “We want to support our nominee but as long as he takes some of these positions it makes it very difficult.”

Other Republicans offer vague support, pledging to back “the ticket” or keep Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton out of the White House without mentioning Trump.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) says he’s going to worry about his own reelection instead of the national party turmoil.

“The most important thing I can control is me and getting reelected,” he said.

A new Landmark Communications/Rosetta Stone poll shows Trump and Clinton in a statistical tie in Georgia, a state that Republican nominees have carried in the past five presidential elections.

Trump’s allies are scrambling to shore up support.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who for a long time was the only member of the Senate to have endorsed Trump, said efforts are underway to set up meetings between the billionaire and skeptical colleagues. 

He said there would be “more than one” meeting but declined to offer further detail.

Gleeful Democrats have been quick to exploit the chaos, using Trump’s controversial statements and positions to attack vulnerable GOP incumbents.

“Donald Trump is no accident. His nomination is not some mistake. Donald Trump is the natural evolution of a party that spent eight years honing a platform that is anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-Obama and anti-working people,” Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader from Nevada, said on the floor Monday afternoon.

Republican strategists acknowledge the party is in uncharted territory. They’re urging embattled lawmakers to do whatever is necessary to avoid becoming collateral damage if Trump’s candidacy implodes.

“The best course of action is to acknowledge that you’re not going to avoid media questions on Trump but handle it definitively one way or the other,” said Josh Holmes, a former senior aide to McConnell. “The best way to handle it is to clearly articulate your view in a way that does not subject you to an ongoing discussion of everything Donald Trump says and does going forward.”

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who faces a tough reelection race in a state President Obama carried twice, tried to do just that in an op-ed published Sunday by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

He urged Trump to unify the party by convincing him and his colleagues that he is committed to the principles of limited government, individual freedom and a strong national defense.

Toomey also warned against using political tactics that divide the electorate by race, sex and income, “pitting Americans against one another in a cynical effort” to advance political interests.

And he called on the combative nominee to ease up on personal attacks and “consider the value of constructive advice.”

But with Trump a magnet for controversy, Republicans are likely to be fielding questions about him from now until Election Day, regardless of whether they support him.

Trump’s victory in the Republican presidential primary, which he cemented last week by trouncing Cruz in Indiana, has created several worries for the GOP.

The businessman’s numbers with Hispanics, white women and young voters — three crucial swing blocs — border on disastrous. And his unchained rhetoric and bombastic style mean the general election could take unexpected twists and turns.

Yet voters have turned out in historic numbers in the Republican presidential primary to support Trump, and he’s drawn many Democrats and independents into the fold, enlarging the party’s tent.  

That dynamic puts GOP lawmakers facing tough reelection races in an excruciating position: They don’t want to alienate Trump’s supporters by criticizing him, but fear that alienating women and Hispanics if they back the businessman too strongly.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the 2008 Republican nominee for president, is caught in the vice as much as anyone. More than 20 percent of the state’s eligible voters are Hispanic, yet Arizona Republicans have a history of backing the kind of hard-line anti-immigrant measures that are part of Trump’s platform.

McCain, who also has to worry about a late primary date in August, is backing Trump, somewhat reluctantly, but other senior party leaders, such as Mitt Romney, the 2012 nominee, and the past two Republican presidents, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, don’t plan to endorse.

As much as GOP candidates might be tempted to reject Trump, they could risk a fatal political backlash for doing so.

“Trump won so many votes in Republican primaries that a lot of Republican lawmakers want to stay on the good side of his voters,” said John Ullyot, a GOP strategist.

But other conservative strategists are warning of a general election bloodbath and urging Republicans to abandon Trump and support a third-party candidate.

“White there is not a single blue state that risks going red because of Trump, there are now four red states that risk turning blue,” Erickson wrote on The Resurgent, his website, pointing to Utah, Georgia, Mississippi and Arizona as states that could go to Democrats in November.

“Republican races in the Senate have all been downgraded for the GOP. Numerous House races are in jeopardy too,” he wrote.

But Erickson and allied conservatives have yet to find a viable alternative candidate who wants to wage a third-party bid.