Trump's handling of the pandemic and the economic crisis are endangering the GOP's Senate majority

• As the pandemic fuels dual health and economic crises, Republicans are newly concerned they'll lose their crucial Senate majority in November.
• Of the 35 senators up for reelection this year, 12 are Democrats and 23 are Republicans. While eight of those Republicans are considered vulnerable, just two Democratic seats at risk of flipping.
• Pollsters say the coronavirus is undermining President Donald Trump and the GOP on the two most important election issues: healthcare and the economy.
• Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden's nomination dampens the contentious debate over single-payer healthcare and aids Democratic challengers in red states.
• "The story here is that the Dems have expanded the map," Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist, told Insider. "I did not think three months ago that they really had a chance to take the majority back."
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Aside from helping President Donald Trump win reelection in November, the most important political objective for Republicans this year is holding on to the Senate majority.

Without GOP control of either the House or Senate, there's no path forward for Trump's agenda and, in the event that former Vice President Joe Biden takes the White House, Democrats would take full control of Washington.

As the public health and economic crises have pummeled the country and Biden became the presumptive presidential nominee, Democrats' chances of flipping the Senate have never been better.

The Senate map was already stacked against the GOP this year. Of the 35 senators up for reelection this year, 12 are Democrats and 23 are Republicans.

But now Republicans have to deal with Trump's heavily criticized coronavirus response, record unemployment, millions of Americans newly without health insurance and an opposition party that can't easily be characterized as socialist with a moderate leading the ticket.

GOP operatives are concerned about these dynamics.

"The story here is that the Dems have expanded the map," Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist, told Insider. "I did not think three months ago that they really had a chance to take the majority back."

While eight GOP incumbents are facing competitive races, just two Democratic incumbents are looking vulnerable, according to the Cook Political Report's ratings. In order to win back control of the Senate, Democrats need to gain four seats — and only three if they win the White House.

Republicans are most worried about Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who's being challenged by former Gov. John Hickenlooper, and Arizona Sen. Martha McSally, who was appointed to her seat to replace the late Sen. John McCain and is being challenged by former astronaut Mark Kelly.

But GOP incumbents in Maine, North Carolina, Montana, Iowa, and Georgia are also facing tough races. Meanwhile, Democratic challengers generated enough enthusiasm to outraise Republican incumbents in six key states.

"We see it as at least a 50-50 chance that Democrats could flip the Senate and I think those odds are probably increasing," Jessica Taylor, an editor at The Cook Political Report, told Insider.

Healthcare and the economy become 'toxic' for Republicans

Pollsters say the coronavirus pandemic is undermining Republicans on the two most important issues in November: healthcare and the economy.

Already, north of 36 million Americans have lost their jobs or been furloughed since the crisis struck.

About 27 million Americans are estimated to have lost their employer-sponsored health coverage since the pandemic began, according to new data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. By the fall, there will likely be more Americans without health insurance than there have been since Obamacare went into effect in 2010.

Democrats are banking on concern over healthcare pushing voters to come out for them.

"This is a really powerful motivating issue for voters who don't want to see protections for pre-existing conditions gutted or want to see their states expand Medicaid," Stewart Boss, a spokesperson for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Insider.

And the Trump administration is currently suing to overturn Obamacare in a case that's now before the Supreme Court.

Before Biden became the presumptive nominee, Republicans planned to weaponize the progressive left's support for Medicare-for-all and run against "socialist" healthcare. But Biden's opposition to single-payer makes that harder.

"Republicans were hoping to neutralize healthcare, which was used so effectively against them in 2018," Rachel Bitecofer, an election forecaster and senior fellow at The Niskanen Center, told Insider. "Now that's also been stripped away from them."

Bitecofer, who called both the economy and healthcare "toxic" for the GOP, noted that Trump has seen declining approval numbers even as other leaders, most notably governors, are experiencing a bipartisan "rally-around-the-flag" boost amid the crisis.

She argued that, barring a dramatic change of course from Trump, "the conditions for the fall election are set in stone."

Bryan Lanza, a former Trump campaign adviser and current GOP strategist, agreed that healthcare will be determinate in November and said Senate Republicans need to offer voters an alternative to Obamacare, despite their failure to "repeal and replace" it.

"You need to have a plan, it just can't be 'that plan is bad and maybe we'll figure out something in the future,'" Lanza told Insider. He added that any Republican who doesn't have a proactive plan for healthcare "will get run over by the voters" this cycle.

But Trump and his allies clearly believe the GOP's case for reelection must rest on the economy. If consumer confidence remains low and voters don't believe Trump is the safest bet to revive the economy, Republicans will have an uphill battle.

"The case you're really going to see the Trump team make is who is better to rebuild the American economy, who can get us back to where we were," Mackowiak said. He added that if there's a new wave of virus infections and state shutdowns, "that's a really, really, really tough environment where I don't know that [Trump] can overcome it."

Democratic governors take the spotlight

Governors who've taken aggressive steps to contain the pandemic — most of them Democrats — have benefited in recent months from strong and bipartisan approval ratings. Meanwhile, Republican governors who were slow to close down their states and quick to reopen have seen significantly lower favorability in recent polling — a dynamic that could hurt senators.

Just 39% of Georgians approve of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp's handling of the crisis, according to a Washington Post/Ipsos poll, after Kemp was criticized, including by Trump, for aggressively reopening his state even as infections shot up.

And this comes as Georgia Republicans are defending two Senate seats this year, one occupied by Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who Kemp appointed in December and who's now battling accusations that she attempted to profit off of the pandemic by selling off millions of dollars worth of stock following an early briefing on the crisis.

Bitecofer said the success of Georgia's reopening could impact the two races.

"Kemp gambled a little bit on the fate of these two Senate seats on his handling of the pandemic," she said.

Meanwhile, Democratic Senate challengers could benefit from their party's more aggressive approach to the pandemic.

After months of insisting he wouldn't run for the Senate, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, a former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, announced in early March that he would challenge GOP Sen. Steve Daines this year.

Now, Bullock is enjoying sky-high approval ratings and heightened visibility for his pandemic response effort. And after closing down his state, which has one of the smallest outbreaks of any state in the country, he's already experimenting with reopening.

"I think it's kind of a win for Bullock to try to reopen now," David Parker, a political science professor at Montana State University, told Insider. "If it doesn't work, then it shows we need to return to the lockdown, if it does work, then the economy can start getting going again."

Parker pointed out that Biden's approval numbers in Montana now are about what President Obama's were in 2012, when Bullock was first elected governor.

But, state-level dynamics will play a limited role in determining the fate of the Senate. Pollsters say the chamber's future is inextricably tied to voters' approval of the president.

"Ultimately, this election cycle is a referendum on President Trump's first term," Taylor said.

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