As election day draws near, significant push from both parties has moved down-ballot as Democrats feel confident in Hillary Clinton’s chances while Republicans work to control congressional damage and retain their majorities in the House and Senate. Based on the most recent state and national polls, FiveThirtyEight and the New York Times have both increased Clinton’s chance of winning the election to 86 and 93 percent, respectively.
With the election result solidified in the minds of party leaders on both sides of the aisle, party officials have pushed money and campaign resources to down-ballot races as Democrats work to take back the House and Senate and Republicans work to control Trump’s negative relationships with key GOP contenders.
Republicans in tight races across the country have shifted their rhetoric to emphasize their opposition stance to Clinton’s agenda. Citing voting records and calling their Democratic opponents “just like Hillary Clinton,” as referenced in the tight Missouri Senate race between military veteran Jason Kander and former House Majority Leader Roy Blunt, candidates have increasingly set their sights on either supporting or standing in firm opposition to Clinton’s policy goals.
It’s clear, however, that Republicans voters in many contested districts are not eager to give up the House to Democrats in 2016. Mike Shields, Republican strategist and Congressional Leadership Fund president told Politico, “In every single district, when you ask people if they would rather have someone who wants to help Hillary Clinton or to stop her, stop her wins every day.”
Democrats have shifted their focus away from electing Clinton, which to them seems inevitable, to ensuring a Clinton administration has at least one body of Congress on their side. Clinton and top surrogates have increasingly shown their faces in contested districts in support of Democratic candidates. President Obama, whose policy agenda has struggled with congressional opposition since the 2010 midterms, expressed remarks to reporters at a fundraiser in California, “It is really important that we push back and defeat this argument that somehow, the duly elected president of the United States should simply be blocked from doing anything by the opposition party.”