Sens. John McCain and Marco Rubio are poised to win primaries Tuesday as the Republican establishment rallies to defend its embattled members against Donald Trump-style insurgents, setting up Election Day tests that could determine whether the party keeps control of the Senate.
The Arizona race has been particularly bruising with challenger Kelli Ward last week accusing Mr. McCain, who turns 80 on Monday, of being too old and “weak” to serve another term.
But both Mr. McCain and Mr. Rubio are well ahead in the polls and have turned their attention to the general election, where they are likely to face much tighter races, thanks in large part to the presence of Mr. Trump at the top of the ballot.
Despite being on the receiving end of some of Mr. Trump’s more remarkable barbs, the two senators have remained loyal to their party’s presidential nominee. Mr. Rubio even delivered a video message at the Republican convention strongly endorsing the billionaire businessman.
But they also have taken pains to chastise their party leader when he has stepped over lines they won’t cross, such his damaging battle with the Muslim parents of a slain U.S. Army captain.
Walking that tightrope in a general election may be tougher, though.
“They can try, with difficulty, to chart a middle path between outright rejection or outright embrace of Trump,” said Geoffrey Skelley, of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “Both McCain and Rubio are running well ahead of Trump at the moment. Given the decline of split-ticket voting in recent years, I’m skeptical that either can run very far ahead of Trump, but it may only take a few points’ difference if both states wind up being relatively close at the top of the ticket.”
Mr. McCain was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, and Mr. Rubio was many Republicans’ prediction for consensus nominee this year until he hit the Trump wall.
Indeed, Mr. Rubio expected to be at the top of the ticket and repeatedly said he wouldn’t run for re-election to his Senate seat. But months after being resoundingly defeated in the Florida presidential primary, the first-term senator reversed himself and said he would try again.
He quickly cleared the field of other challengers save for Carlos Beruff, a businessman who hoped to rally Trump supporters to vote for him in the senatorial primary.
Instead, Mr. Rubio found a way to keep them on board.
“He is loyal enough to the party and the nominee that he can’t be overtly accused of treason and therefore suffer significant blowback in the primary, but he is far enough away from Trump and continually makes — through body language, circumambulations and otherwise — makes it obviously apparent to independents, moderate Democrats and sane Republicans that he finds Trump distasteful,” said Mac Stipanovich, a Republican Party strategist and lobbyist in Florida.
Mr. Rubio is carrying a 30-point lead over Mr. Beruff in the latest polling.
If he survives the primary, he leads his most likely Democratic opponent, Rep. Patrick Murphy, by 5 percentage points. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, is trailing Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by 3 percentage points in Florida.
In Arizona, Mr. McCain has a 24-point lead over Ms. Ward and an 8-point lead over Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, his likely Democratic rival in the November election. Mr. Trump leads Mrs. Clinton by 1 percentage point in the latest polling in the state.
Mr. McCain and Mr. Rubio are in just two of more than a dozen races that will determine control of the Senate, but they are two of the most intriguing because both have struggled with the same immigration issue that is tripping Mr. Trump.
Mr. McCain led the fight for legalization in the previous decade and then signed on with Mr. Rubio, the de facto Republican public leader of the 2013 Senate push for legalization.
Their primary opponents have used their support against them, though it does not appear to be fatal in the primary.
But Mr. Trump’s harsh rhetoric could be a problem for Republicans in the general election.
“The cake may be baked in the public’s view,” Mr. Skelley said of voters’ views of Mr. Trump. “So in states with large Latino populations such as Arizona and Florida, this is going to be a useful issue for the Democratic nominees to use to make specific appeals to that demographic group.”
Indeed, Mrs. Kirkpatrick is trying to drag down Mr. McCain by playing up his refusal to disavow Mr. Trump.
“The only hope she has is to try to bring down John McCain through Donald Trump, but it won’t work,” said Sean Noble, a Republican Party strategist in Arizona. “John McCain remains one of the best retail politicians in America, and as such as he gets around Arizona it reminds voters why they supported him through the years.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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