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WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has acted as a presidential candidate this week, holding daily double-header rallies and announcing Republican ads in Tuesday's election. Given the stakes of his presidency, he could just as well be.
A node of investigations. Partisan impasse. A warning shot for his candidacy for reelection. Trump faces potentially debilitating consequences if Republicans lose control of one or both houses of Congress, thus ending the two-year hegemony of the GOP in Washington. A White House that has struggled to stay the course under favorable circumstances would be put to the test in a dramatic way. A president who often fights against his own party would face much less tolerant opposition.
On the other hand, if the Republicans retain control of the House and Senate, it is only a victory of the GOP, but a validation of Trump's policy and his unconventional presidency. This result, considered less likely even in the White House, would embolden the president as he launches his own bid for reelection.
White House aides insisted that the president was not spending much time considering a defeat, but he began trying to calibrate his expectations. He focused on Senate competitions in the last days of his scorched earth campaign and was far from blame if the Republicans lost the House. If this happens, he intends to claim victory, claiming that his efforts during the election campaign have reduced GOP losses and helped them hold the Senate, according to a person familiar with the issue. Trump thought that would have asked for anonymity because she was not allowed to discuss conversations at the White House. name.
Throughout the campaign, Trump has tested other explanations – highlighting historic headwinds for the outgoing president's party and complaining of a wave of GOP retirements this year. Last month, he told AP that he would take no responsibility if Democrats took power.
On Friday, at a rally in West Virginia, provocative Trump dismissed the prospect of a Democratic House takeover. "It could happen," he said, adding "do not worry, I'll just understand."
Meanwhile, his aides have begun preparations to cope with a flood of subpoenas that could happen next year from committees controlled by the Democrats and the White House council office has attempted to Attract experienced lawyers to field control investigations.
If they take the House, Democrats are already considering reopening the House Intelligence Committee inquiry into Trump's links with Russia. Other committees are considering aggressive oversight of Trump's administration and its commercial interests. Some Democrats plan to use the House Ways and Means Committee to obtain copies of the president's tax returns after breaking with decades of tradition and hiding them from the public during his campaign for the White House.
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A slight Republican majority in the House would also present challenges that could ignite intra-party differences. The first of them would be a potentially bitter fight in the House to replace outgoing President Paul Paul Ryan. But a smaller majority would also exacerbate divisions over politics – and unified uninterrupted scrutiny could leave the GOP facing the deadlock liability.
"It is clear that the legislative agenda is very broad," said Republican consultant Josh Holmes. "The prospect of a democratically controlled House or Senate puts a serious dent in Congress getting anything."
Some in the White House think that it might be better to lose to the Democrats. They see the Democrats' eagerness to investigate the president as a blessing in disguise by 2020. They see the minority leader in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, as a powerful tool for Trump, and believe they can identify the party's responsibility for Washington's dysfunction.
Ari Fleischer, press secretary for George W. Bush, said the democratic control of the House "presents both a danger and a promise for the president."
"The danger is subpoenas, investigations, legal bills and headaches," he said. "The promise is that Trump will have an easy foil to face: Pelosi and democratic leadership."
The White House assistants discussed floating popular legislative issues, such as infrastructure, to tempt the Democrats and test the unity of the Democratic opposition.
While keeping the House is a tough battle for the GOP, Trump and the Republicans tried in the last days of the campaign to sell voters the opportunity for two more years of GOP control. They promised radical immigration policies and more tax cuts, saying the Democrats would wipe out two years of progress.
In the final weeks of the mid-session, Trump launched a flawless effort to boost Republicans as he plunged into the same under-tensions of unease that shaped his 2016 campaign. fears relating to illegal immigration and prevent economic collapse if Democrats are victorious.
But a defeat in the House will prompt GOP to understand the party's divisions and the struggles for moderate Republicans to run in the Trump, and raise the question of whether the Democratic gains point to a favorable outcome for presidential candidates in 2020.
Democratic consultant Jim Manley said on Tuesday that revelations could allow the Democrats to win back white-middle-class voters from the Midwest who supported Trump in 2016.
"Trump help. It is becoming more and more radioactive, "said Manley. "There is a chance to try to win them back."
But while the results may reveal weaknesses in the Republican coalition, the mid-term elections are very different from the presidential years. Republicans quickly pointed out that the ruling party usually suffered mid-term defeats. Former President Barack Obama was, in his words, "broke" in 2010 and was re-elected in 2012.
"After that, people exaggerate the meaning and in 2 years everything will have changed," said Fleischer.
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