Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) on Monday acknowledged the war in Iran is shaping tight congressional races nationwide as he warned that the Republican Party’s performance in the midterm election will boil down to voter turnout.
Thune’s admission comes as polling shows the Iran war and its impact on the cost of living, particularly gas prices, are widely unpopular with voters, spelling trouble for the GOP in the upcoming November elections.
During a Fox News interview this week, Thune said “a lot” of Senate races are a “jump ball,” as he noted that affordability issues and energy costs are affecting campaigns, while the Iran war “sort of trumped everything else that’s going on.” He noted that President Donald Trump, who has vigorously defended the war, is working to turn out voters who back him. But the top Senate Republican said major races in battleground states such as Michigan and Maine will come down to candidates building their “own brand” apart from Trump, campaigning on state issues and reaching independent-minded voters, as he warned against nationalizing elections.
“I think for each of these candidates, whether it’s Maine or Michigan, you’ve got an electorate that isn’t homogeneous. You’ve got to appeal to the people in your state. For that, you have to be your own candidate,” Thune said. “And I think if you make it about the people, voters of Michigan, voters of Maine, and not nationalize it, not make it about what’s going on in the national environment, I think you got a really good chance of winning.”
“In some of these races, too, you’ve got to appeal to the middle of the electorate, a lot of those independent voters. And I think people like Mike Rogers, who’s running in a state that doesn’t historically vote Republican, is demonstrating that he’s his own person,” Thune added, referring to Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers’s bid against Abdul el Sayed.
Thune then commented on Sen. Susan Collins’s (R-ME) reelection campaign in Maine.
“You know, you take Maine, Susan Collins … these are folks who have their own brand to start with, and I think that really helps their calling long term.”
Thune acknowledged that the Senate race in Texas is giving him some “heartburn,” referring to state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s costly bid against Democrat James Talarico. But he expressed hope that the tide is slowly turning in Republicans’ favor after candidates endured a summer of grief from Democrat rivals over the Iran war and other issues. Thune also expressed optimism that socialist-leaning candidates on the Democratic side, such as el Sayed in Michigan, will turn voters toward the GOP.
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“What we’re seeing is, at least initially, the party out of power, their voters always want to send a message, so they tend to have more intensity, enthusiasm. That’s changing,” Thune said. “We’re seeing our voters start to come home, and I think that really helps us in these margin-of-error races. And most polling underestimates Republican turnout historically. It’s just a fact. So if we’re in a margin-of-error situation right now, we feel pretty good about our chances.”
“There are some factors that our candidates don’t control, but you control the things you can. We have really high-quality candidates in all the right places, and they’re very well resourced,” he added. “In many cases, they draw Democratic voters who [have] clearly lost their minds, so far left. So this is going to be a — I would say elections are about differences, and I think voters are going to have a clear choice in all these competitive races.”