Stephen Hayes: The GOP's Long Term Trump Burden

Sensing an opportunity to make big gains in Congress on November 8, top Democrats have stepped up their efforts to link congressional Republicans to the nominee of their party, Donald Trump.

For months, Republicans have wondered about the long-term damage done to their party by Trump, even as many Republicans running this year have walked a narrow line, trying to accept Trump-as-an-expression-of-the-will-of-the-voters but not embrace Trump-as-Trump. So we’ve seen arguments from Republicans who promise only to vote for Trump but not endorse him; we've seen others who have questioned Trump's mental stability and insist in the next breath that he must be president.

Jim Treacher at The Daily Caller captured the phenomenon nicely in a short piece Thursday.

It is with a heavy heart that I condemn the actions of GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, and I encourage you to vote for him on November 8.

As the allegations of sexual assault pile up, my conscience will not allow me to support the man I plan to vote for. No woman should ever live in fear of someone like Donald Trump, who is going to Make America Great Again.

Four more years with a Democrat in the White House could mean the destruction of our great nation, and it can only be prevented by electing the man I repudiate in the strongest possible terms.

Donald Trump is a disgrace to the Republican Party and to the United States of America, and I hope you'll join me in supporting him on Election Day!

The reasons we're seeing this are not complicated. Republicans in tight races, like Marco Rubio in Florida or Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, reason that if they were to forcefully condemn Trump and announce that they will not support him, some undetermined slice of Trump backers would abandon them. And given the increasingly anti-Republican mood in the country, that slice wouldn't have to be very large to doom their candidacies.

Read the rest from Steve Hayes HERE.

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