Alfonse D'Amato

T-minus one month, and anything can happen

Posted

After Donald Trump failed to capitalize at the first presidential debate and showed signs of weakness, his support dropped across the swing-state map. This has the Republican Party leadership concerned, and wondering what impact Trump, at the top of the ticket, will have on the party’s battle to maintain control of Congress.

The concerns don’t stop there. Locally, Republicans are once again in a very tough battle to hold their slim control over the New York State Senate. On Long Island, Trump continues to be voters’ top choice in Suffolk County, and was about even with Hillary Clinton in Nassau County, the last I heard.

I’m not a pollster, but my humble career has given me an above-average ability to read polls. In my experience, when the top of the ticket has a strong showing, he (or she) has a tremendous ability to carry the momentum through to the bottom of the ticket.

In this case, strong voter turnout for Trump would play very well for some Republican candidates across Long Island. That being said, in this presidential race, it is much more difficult to gauge voters’ intentions considering everyone’s continued dissatisfaction with both candidates. I can really see voters being all over the map with their choices. This will likely be the trend nationwide.

In the days before Sunday’s debate, Trump trailed in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina. Polls showed that Clinton had opened up a 10-point lead in Pennsylvania, a state that was considered a toss-up just weeks ago. Polls also indicated that Trump was losing the support of independent and moderate Republican voters.

The good news for Republicans is that Clinton has her own issues and scandals, making her an extremely unpopular choice, especially among Americans who are sick and tired of politics as usual. Clinton and the Democrats continue to throw statistics and numbers in the faces of American voters, assuring them that jobs and the economy are on the rise, while the vast majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and their jobs are being sold off to foreign workers so that companies can save on taxes and employee health insurance.

Even Bill Clinton himself admitted that Obamacare was a “crazy system” in which small-business people are “getting killed.” What does this say about the philosophy of the Democratic Party?

Nationally, do the Democrats have any chance of regaining control of Congress? Right now in the Senate, Republicans hold 54 seats to the Democrats’ 46, but the Democrats appear to have an edge on the map, based on the seats that are up for grabs. There is a very real chance that the Democrats could take back the Senate.

However, there are instances like in Nevada, where the race to replace Sen. Harry Reid in an open-seat election could be a pickup for Republicans.

In the House, Republicans enjoy a 59-seat majority, a number I don’t believe can or will be dramatically affected by Trump.

The fact is that if a candidate is strong enough, he or she will survive an election regardless of the party at the top of the ticket. In 1992, President Clinton carried New York state by close to 1.1 million votes. I was next to Clinton on the ballot, and I managed to win my Senate election by persuading 600,000 voters who voted for Clinton to vote for me.

In the closing weeks before the election, Trump and Clinton will continue to duke it out. In the meantime, we saw our two vice presidential candidates, Gov. Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Kaine, have their only debate. While both had impressive knowledge of the issues, Kaine acted like a child on a playground, and again, a weak moderator did nothing to stop him.

This was truly a shame, because Pence’s strong performance was overshadowed by Kaine’s continual interruptions. When are moderators going to learn to stick to the rules of the debates and allow the candidates their fair share of time?

Pence should be applauded for his performance under difficult and unfair circumstances.

Al D’Amato, a former U.S. senator from New York, is the founder of Park Strategies LLC, a public policy and business development firm. Comments about this column? ADAmato@liherald.com.