Republicans are looking weak, scrambling while Democrats are on offense

Things happened this week --or didn't happen--that underscore how feeble the GOP appears heading into the election, fearing events in North Carolina and far beyond.

Yesterday, the House passed a funding bill that prevented an imminent government shutdown which extends current government funding for another three months. You might not have even heard about it. It was almost…normal.

Sure, House Speaker Mike Johnson first tried to attach a Project 2025-inspired voter ID law that would require proof of citizenship, as the GOP has whipped up the completely false claim that millions of non-citizens are voting and we need a law to ban it. It’s a lie because it’s already illegal for non-citizens to vote, and states have safeguards.

Democrats—and some Republicans—said no way to Johnson, and voted it down. And then, Johnson caved immediately and put forth a clean bill, even though Donald Trump had demanded he force a government shutdown.

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The usual band of MAGA maniacs in the House didn’t like the new bill because it didn’t cut spending, but Johnson decided to get the bill passed via suspension of the rules, once again turning to Democrats. And while there were grumbles, there was no talk of removing Johnson as speaker—or even whispers about it—something that’s played out a few times.

In the Senate, where MAGA senators balked, Ted Cruz of all people voted for the funding bill, helping make sure Democrats got it passed. That’s because he’s running scared, as Democratic Rep. Colin Allred, challenging him in November, is tied with him in polls. Cruz is looking pathetic and weak, and so is the rest of the GOP, which goes into the election having accomplished absolutely nothing.

When extremist Reps. Majorie Taylor Greene of Georgia or Paul Gosar of Arizona in the past posted vile, bigoted crap on social media, Republicans defended them, and they were adamant against deleting them, ratcheting up battles with Democrats.

But yesterday Georgia Rep. Clay Higgins posted a racist screed about Haitian migrants on X, calling them “thugs” and “slapstick gangsters” who needed to get “their a** out of our country.” And after Democrats hit Higgins and the GOP hard, the post was soon deleted. Others in the GOP had told Higgins to take it down, and, according to Mike Johnson, Higgins “prayed on it” and removed it.

Higgins, however, later doubled down, saying that “it’s all true,” so there was no change in the racist sentiment. But GOP leaders were worried enough that they recoiled from a fight, something the extremists in their base surely noted.

That doesn’t mean the GOP can’t or won’t prevail in the elections, many of which are tight, as they’re clearly trying to temper themselves, fearful about how swing voters view them. But it’s harder to undo all of the crazy of the past several years at the last minute, especially with Trump and JD Vance at the top of the ticket falsely accusing migrants of eating dogs and the North Carolina governor candidate Mark Robinson having been found on a porn site calling himself a “Black Nazi.”

Trump himself is so desperate for votes that he is ridiculously reaching out to suburban women voters by claiming he’s their “protector” who will defend them against what he claims is rising crime (even as the FBI announced this week once again that violent crime is down), so much so, Trump says, that women will “no longer be thinking about abortion.”

This is laughable, and it underscored how feeble Trump has become. Vice President Harris rightly called him out as “weak” at the debate, and it was so damning because, rather than use words like “dangerous” that build him up with his followers, she focused on how “unserious” and “confused” he is, throwing him off. Trump seems unable to break from that frame now.

Harris, on offense, went into Trump country in western Pennsylvania yesterday, speaking in Pittsburgh to the Economic Club about an issue that, in polls, has been seen as one of Trump’s strengths with voters. She gave a detailed speech on her economic plan, expanding on what she’s said before and focusing in on manufacturing, which, she pointed out, declined under Trump—200,000 jobs were lost during his administration, including before the pandemic—and laid out plans for how she’ll build on the ways President Biden boosted manufacturing.

She talked about Trump as a billionaire who can’t relate to average people and whose economic policies failed when he was president, and how he’s only promising more of the same in a second term.

“I intend to chart a new way forward and grow America’s middle class. Donald Trump intends to take America backward to the failed policies of the past,” she said, adding that Trump had cut taxes for people like himself and big corporations. “You see, for Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers. Not those who actually build them. Not those who wire them. Not those who mop the floor.”

Hitting Trump on his perceived strengths like the economy is working, as Harris has cut his lead on the economy, with several polls now showing her even or ahead on the issue. But when Trump focuses on the issues that are Harris’ strengths, like abortion, it’s ludicrous nonsense—and it’s certainly not making inroads with the voters he needs.

Senate Democrats are now going on offense too, as it was reported today that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is putting resources to Senate races in Texas and Florida. Allred, as I pointed out, is tied in polls with Cruz, and former Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is tied with Republican Senator Rick Scott in Florida.

Some of the new Democratic focus is a reaction to the tight polls in Montana, where Democrat John Tester is trying to hold on to his Senate seat; losing it without any new pickups by the Dems would cause the GOP to take back the Senate. But Democrats should have been focused on Florida and Texas anyway, and on expanding the Senate majority.

It’s good that they’re doing so now. Rick Scott is now playing defense, running negative ads against Mucarsel-Powell, and Cruz is clearly very spooked, just as Republicans in North Carolina are worried that Mark Robinson will take down GOP candidates up and down the ballot, including Trump. The GOP is scrambling, and Democrats are hitting them hard.