(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Trump continues to doom Republicans' Senate takeover plans [1] ['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-05-10 Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota got a little closer to the point about Trump's drag in a general election. “His first go-around, there were a lot of swing-type voters who were open to the opportunity and I think a lot of those voters abandoned him in the second go-around and this reminds them of why,” Cramer said of the verdict. Writer E. Jean Carroll was awarded $5 million Tuesday after nine jurors found Trump liable for battery and defamation. Carroll sued Trump, claiming he raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s and later defamed her by denying her story. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana expressed moral outrage at Trump's actions, calling them "reprehensible" without naming him. “Would you want it done to your spouse? To your sister? To your mother? So I hope it’s a consideration,” Cassidy remarked, seemingly wishcasting Trump's demise in the GOP primary. Despite their obvious electoral concerns, none of those Senate Republicans took a direct swing at Trump. Meanwhile, their pro-Trump counterparts vehemently denounced the verdict as "a joke." Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, even suggested committing voter fraud as a remedy for the supposed injustice. “It makes me want to vote for him twice," Tuberville said.“They’re going to do anything they can to keep him from winning." But in many ways, Tuberville's sentiment is precisely why Trump remains the 2024 Republican frontrunner despite accumulating a dazzling display of losses both in the courts and at the ballot box. "This Tuberville statement reflects well what I hear from Trump voters when we ask focus groups what they think about Trump being impeached/indicted/found liable," tweeted Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and host of “The Focus Group” podcast. Each measure of accountability is just more evidence that they’re trying to “get Trump” to stop him from winning. Civiqs tracking of Trump's favorable rating showed that perhaps Trump did get a modest boost of a couple of points, almost entirely among independents, after he was indicted for falsifying business records in a 2016 election hush money scheme. But it also suggests Trump's luck may be running out—it's too early to know how officially being a batterer plays GOP-leaning voters. x Civiqs Results But whatever impact the Carroll verdict has on Trump, the great hope that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could single-handedly save Republicans from yet another cycle of Trump doom is fading fast. DeSantis' stock was already falling when he stumbled into an embarrassing row with what is arguably the most adored company on the planet: Disney. In a piece in The Atlantic, Longwell notes that DeSantis v. Disney isn't winning over any two-time Trump voters: Colleen, a Republican from Georgia, called DeSantis’s war with Disney “a little goofy,” saying, “It’s Disney World! Leave it alone.” Informed about DeSantis’s suggestion to build a prison next to the theme park, Ruth—a Michigan Republican—exclaimed, “Why would you do that? That’s terrible.” No single person was ever going to save Republicans from another Trump nomination. Rather, it would take a scrappy all-hands-on-deck effort coming at him from all directions. But the McConnell wing of the party is simply proving too soft for such an endeavor, despite Trump's death grip on the party. As Longwell concludes, big plan of the GOP establishment, already resigning itself to defeat, is "to sit back and pray that the Democrats take care of Trump for them." As it ever was. Related Articles: It’s 2023, which may be an odd year, but that just means Virginia takes its traditional place as one of the key states to watch. With odd-year state elections, Virginia has often been a key bellwether for the rest of the country, and this year is no different. Both the state Senate and the General Assembly are up, and both chambers could be won by either party. Daily Kos Elections Editor Jeff Singer joins us to preview the key races in both the June primary and the fall general election. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/10/2168568/-Trump-continues-to-doom-Republicans-Senate-takeover-plans Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/