HE HAS A PLANE AND A MEGAPHONE: Trump Would Relish Going After Dem Senators In Supreme Court Fight.
Schumer’s threat is real. During the debate on Alito, Harry Reid, who was then the Democratic leader of the House, and then-senator Barack Obama attempted a filibuster against him. But far from being intimidated, Donald Trump is likely to relish such a fight. During the annual meeting of the Federalist Society, the nation’s premier conservative and libertarian legal group, a group of its chapter presidents got an inside look at some of Trump’s thinking. Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society’s executive vice president and a leading adviser to Republicans on judicial nominees, told the group that Trump isn’t going to be dictated to.
Fresh from a meeting with Trump in New York last Wednesday, Leo said that Trump knows the importance of the Supreme Court to the voters who elected him. He noted that exit polls showed that 21 percent of Americans said the Supreme Court was “the most important factor” in their decision about which presidential candidate to support. By a ratio of three to two, such voters went for Trump over Hillary Clinton. “Mr. Trump has a plane and double-digit victories where Senate Democrats are up for reelection,” Leo told the group. “Obstructing his nominees will be a political loser.”
Indeed, Democrats have 25 of their 48 Senate seats up before voters in 2018. Many are from states Obama lost twice and Clinton once: Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia. Democrat Joe Donnelly of Indiana knows that his state rejected Obama in his reelection in 2012, voted against Hillary, and is home to Mike Pence, the newly elected vice president–elect.
Four other Democratic senators are from states Clinton lost: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The prospect of a President Trump visiting their states and holding rallies to whip up support for his Supreme Court nominee would make many Democratic senators uncomfortable, especially if Trump supplemented his efforts with TV and social-media campaigns.
One can imagine.