“This is very much a referendum on the president,” said Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, about the November election. Even so, Mr. Bolger and many other prominent Republicans now believe they are likely to lose the House, where they have a 23-seat majority and as many as 60 seats are being fiercely contested by Democrats. The party is preparing to shift advertising money away from some of their most beleaguered incumbents toward a set of races in somewhat more favorable territory. In the narrowly divided Senate, both parties see eight to nine seats, most of them held by Democrats, on a knife’s edge. And instead of attempting to highlight positive economic news like the 3.9 percent unemployment rate, Republicans have turned to a scorched-earth campaign against the Democrats in a bid to save their House majority and salvage their one-seat edge in the Senate.

Source: New York Times September 15, 2018 14:03 UTC