SOUTHERN SURRENDER

MAGA Gets Ready to Fly White Flag in Two Battleground States

Republican Senate candidates in states President Donald Trump won in 2024 may soon see their GOP spending pulled.

Republicans are considering surrendering a pair of Senate races in states that President Donald Trump won in 2024, a new report alleges.

GOP operatives are considering pulling spending on Senate races in Georgia and North Carolina, insiders tell Politico, in what is the latest proof that Republican odds of maintaining control of the upper chamber are falling fast.

Rumblings of a Southern surrender come as GOP operatives fear that spending money to prop up those candidates could leave them vulnerable in once-safe seats that have become competitive elsewhere in the country, Politico reports, citing “well-placed party sources.”

If true, GOP spending against Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff—who flipped the seat in 2021 and is now a top 2028 presidential contender—would dry up, surely dooming his scandal-plagued MAGA opponent, Rep. Mike Collins.

Ossoff led Collins by 7 points in a survey conducted this month by Republican pollster Trafalgar Group.

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Retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ seat in North Carolina is also being viewed as a likely flip in GOP circles, Politico’s reporting suggests. The site reports that internal GOP polling shows former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper with a double-digit lead over the Republican candidate, Michael Whatley.

Trump has thrown his full weight behind Whatley, traveling to North Carolina for a rally earlier this month.

Vice President JD Vance followed suit with his own event on Monday—though a local NPR affiliate reported that the crowd at Vance’s rally numbered only about 300 in a convention center with a capacity of 3,000. Photos showed attendees nodding off and others absorbed in their phones.

Republican strategists believe their money would be better spent on Senate races in Michigan and New Hampshire, where they think the party has a stronger chance of winning, sources tell Politico.

In line with Politico’s reporting, a major Republican fundraising event was held Monday at Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn’s private home and attended by former President George W. Bush. Hosted by the Maintain the Majority fundraising committee, The New York Times reports that the group is seeking to spend big to boost Republican Senate candidates in Iowa, Alaska, Michigan, Minnesota, and Maine—but not Georgia or North Carolina.

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Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC waited until this month to fully open its war chest, but the spending spree may have come too late.

“The bottom’s beginning to fall out,” a House Republican from a reliably Republican district told Politico. “We have money that we’ve never had before, but they have every strategic advantage in their direction, and the president’s made it worse—nobody in my district cares about the Kennedy Center, arches or the Reflecting Pool, all this nonsense.”

Warning signs appear even in deep-red Florida—the president’s adopted home state. There, the ultra-MAGA Republican candidate for governor, Rep. Byron Donalds, scrubbed Trump from his campaign site in the same month that a St. Pete Polls survey put Democratic challenger David Jolly within a point of him.

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Erkki ForsterNight News Reporter

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