Kerry Picket of the Washington Examiner reports on the re-election strategies for Republican senators in swing states.
Senate Republicans facing tough reelection battles are recalculating their campaign strategies amid the push from Democrats to impeach President Trump.
Republicans hold the majority in the upper chamber by two seats and of the 35 seats contested in 2020, Republicans hold 23 and four of their members are in toss-up races.
Senate Democrats, frustrated by the number of Trump judicial and administration appointments Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has guided through upper chamber confirmation votes, have zeroed in on these vulnerable Republican members as part of their 2020 election strategy to take back the Senate.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, running for her fifth term, split from her party’s defense of the president and criticized him over asking China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. …
… Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner came out in full support of releasing the whistleblower report but did not back the House impeachment inquiry when it was first announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. …
… North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis dismissed Pelosi’s call for an impeachment inquiry without an official impeachment inquiry vote saying to WBTV that Democrats’ “credibility in terms of facts driving their behavior is really diminished in my eyes.”
He continued, “It looks like it’s a political decision. If it was an institutional decision, then Speaker Pelosi, why didn’t you take a vote on the floor and get everybody on the record saying the evidence rose to a level to do it?” …
… Finally, Arizona Republican Sen. Martha McSally, who lost her initial Senate run in 2018 to now Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, only called the impeachment inquiry a “distraction,” preferring to allow voters in her state to make up their own minds about the president.