All signs point to the House GOP falling quickly into line with Donald Trump. Indeed, it’s not clear to me that #NeverTrump even really exists anymore outside of a thin membrane of conservative writers and intellectuals who may be acting admirably but have little real electoral pull. But remember, the House is heavily gerrymandered. It may be plausible that a total blowout at the top of the ticket could lose Republicans the House. But it’s not likely. For a number of reasons, House Republicans have a lot of ways to bundle up to withstand a Trump electoral storm, if indeed it turns out to be a storm.
The Senate is an altogether different matter.
As we know, Senators must win entire states. Only a very small number of states are as tightly locked in partisan terms as a well-gerrymandered district. And the GOP Senate Majority, having to defend the big and sometimes marginal gains of 2010, was in jeopardy well before Donald Trump arrived and Antonin Scalia passed away.
What I hear from folks on the Hill, talking to backbench Republicans, is that the resistance to Trump is fading fast. We’ll know whether something has really changed if we see any change from the Republican senators from blue and purple states start to get on board. I would be very surprised if we do.
