Trump Enters Senate Race, Says Heitkamp “Always Will Vote No When We Need Her”
After weeks of Senator Heidi Heitkamp’s campaign pushing a narrative which held that President Donald Trump – a man who in the 2016 cycle the Democrats were describing as vile and unfit for office – liked Heitkamp more than her Republican challenger Kevin Cramer.
Heitkamp has also invested a lot of money and political capital into messaging pointing out how often she’s voted with Trump.
While Heitkamp and her media allies were pushing that narrative we got silence from the Trump administration. And yesterday it sure seemed like Trump gave Cramer a snub when he announced a visit to Minnesota but not North Dakota despite earlier reports that he’d be visiting both states.
But now Trump is in the Senate race. By way of Twitter, naturally:
Congratulations to @KevinCramer on his huge win in North Dakota. We need Kevin in the Senate, and I strongly endorse him. Heidi voted NO on our Tax Cuts, and always will vote no when we need her. Kevin is strong on Crime & Borders, big on Cutting Taxes!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018
The response from Democrats? Double down, I guess:
Who's begging who? After weeks of embarrassing headlines, @kevincramer was desperate for a lifeline. #ndsen #ndpol pic.twitter.com/YAK6LEyrvX
— ND Dem-NPL (@nddemnpl) June 13, 2018
I really don’t understand what the end game is for the Democrats. It’s audacious what they’re trying to do, which is trying to get to the right of Cramer and portray their candidate as a stronger ally, but it only works so long as Trump himself doesn’t offer a rebuttal. Now that Trump has entered the arena, where do they go?