It's nine days to the election, and Mitch McConnell, who really really really wants to be Majority Leader again, has some decisions to make.
Yes, there's a lot of dark money around, but McConnell is in charge of the GOP's super Senate PAC. Who does he keep funding at this point, and who does he cut loose?
It's an unexpectedly (for Mitch) tough decision — because although the lazy media/GOP narrative was always that the Republicans would take Congress this year, the Senate map has been difficult. Thanks to Benedict Donald, the GOP has nominated some real whackjobs for seats they want to flip (Walker in Georgia, Oz in Pennsylvania, Vance in Ohio) and is saddled with unappealing incumbents like Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. They also haven't been able to put away races like Florida, North Carolina, Iowa and, incredibly, Utah. Who'd have thought it?
So what is Mitch to do? As a general rule, he will support an incumbent before a challenger. So that means that Chuck Grassley, Baby Marco Rubio, and Johnson will get money. The hapless Republican nominee in New Hampshire? Nope. Washington State? Probably not. Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina are currently Republican seats, so he's got to keep investing — to save face, if nothing else. But what does he do about Arizona and Nevada?
The Republicans have been flooding the zone with GOP-leaning polls lately, and the media have been eagerly (and ignorantly) lapping them up. But Mitch? He'll probably not trust those phony polls. Instead, he'll have someone take a hard, quiet and honest look at the races that matter to him. We're thinking that with the record turnout the country has seen so far, he won't like what he sees. We cats PURR.
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