Trump-Republican infighting hands the Democrats a chance 

One year ago, the alliance between President Trump and congressional Republicans looked airtight, just as it has for virtually the entirety of the last decade. Indeed, together they had just muscled through a sweeping tax package, and criticism of the president from Republican lawmakers was all but nonexistent.  

That world is now unraveling, as Republican senators increasingly spar with a president who they see as too focused on his own priorities at the expense of their reelection prospects. 

Simultaneously, these tensions are a tremendous gift to Democrats. In addition to using the fighting to bolster their argument that Republicans are unable to govern, Democrats can also point to Trump’s actions and say that even Republicans feel he isn’t addressing voters’ top concerns. 

Over just the last two weeks, Trump has blown up a signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing bill, stonewalled requests for information surrounding Iran, called a senator a “lunatic” and refused to budge on his demands to pass non-viable voting legislation at the expense of other key legislation.  

To that end, Republican Senators’ frustration came to a head at a recent Hill lunch. Meant to project unity, Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) got into a screaming match following Cassidy’s vote to curb Trump’s war powers, later fuming that Trump treats Congress “merely as an appendage” echoing Sen. Thom Tillis’s (R-N.C.) recent complaints. 

Tillis himself has also railed against Trump’s myopic focus on the SAVE America Act at the expense of bipartisan housing legislation that Republicans had been counting on to be a tailwind in the midterms.

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn........

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