Donald Trump versus Mitch McConnell: Tension could make 2022 election messy for Republicans

The fallout from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's broken alliance with former President Donald Trump could make the GOP's fight to wrest control of the Senate away from Democrats much messier, political experts say.

Trump slammed McConnell as an "unsmiling political hack" on Tuesday and threatened to oppose conservative senators who stick with the Kentuckian in future primaries.

If he makes good on that threat, it could lead to battles between Trump-backed and McConnell-backed candidates in 2022 — an uncomfortable possibility for Republicans and a delightful one for Democrats.

"I mean, this is like King Kong vs. Godzilla," said Mark Riddle, a Kentucky-based Democratic strategist. "I'm not saying which one is which, but we should just stand back and let them go fight."

Riddle sees McConnell as the smartest political strategist in generations and knows he must recognize Democrats will benefit if the next election focuses on Trump and personality politics instead of policy issues.

"As long as it’s about Trump, Democrats are in the driver’s seat. ... A united party is strong, and a divided party is weak," he said, pointing out the GOP lost power in Congress and the White House in the elections following Trump's 2016 victory.

The outcome of one or two races can make or break a party's bid for power in the Senate. That happened last month when Democrats gained control and demoted McConnell to minority leader by winning two high-stakes Georgia runoff races.

More:Sen. Mitch McConnell is getting a demotion: Here's what it means for Kentucky

"Of course Trump can be a destructive force," said Bill Stone, a Louisville businessman and former chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party. "He doesn't have to have much impact. All he’s got to blow is two or three seats for us."

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, likewise said primary battles wouldn't benefit the GOP. 

"The last thing you want is intraparty disputes because it drains money and alienates some of your own people," he said.  

But if McConnell and Trump end up duking it out in their party's primaries, Sabato said he'd bet on the Kentuckian in a lot of those battles.

"McConnell’s a much better strategist than Trump has ever been," he said.

Trump's tirade against McConnell on Tuesday came a few days after the longtime senator publicly blamed him for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, which forced Congress to evacuate and resulted in the deaths of a U.S. Capitol Police officer and four other people.

"There's no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day," McConnell said Saturday.

The fact he voted to acquit Trump of inciting an insurrection on constitutional grounds didn't seem to dampen the ex-president's anger, though.

Trump is itching for a fight, Riddle said, and it looks like he'll target McConnell and the Republican establishment this time.

"He could never figure out how to lay the glove on Joe Biden," Riddle told The Courier Journal. "But Mitch symbolizes everything that Trump believes he’s not. ... He's got an enemy now."

More:Donald Trump rips Mitch McConnell as each seeks to exert leadership after impeachment trial

Primary battle royale?

Trump isn't the only one who has threatened to intervene in Republican primaries. 

McConnell told Politico on Saturday he may get involved in such races, and he didn't rule out opposing candidates Trump supports. His goal: ensure the winners can defeat the Democratic candidate in November.

"The only thing I care about is electability," he said.

Republican consultant Josh Holmes, McConnell's former chief of staff, said this wouldn't be the first time the senator has played a role in the party's primaries.

During the tea party movement's heyday in the early 2010s, Holmes said the GOP lost some winnable Senate races because controversial challengers who won in the primaries were handily defeated by Democrats in the general election.

Holmes said McConnell helped the GOP win control of the Senate in 2014 — earning his dream job as majority leader — in part by deciding to take an active role in certain primary races "because it’s vitally important that we have electable candidates, and it also means something to the national brand overall to have candidates that are befitting of your brand."

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Even if Trump does take part in the future primaries, Holmes doubts there will be constant clashes over candidates between him and McConnell because there likely will be plenty of races in which they support the same person.

"What candidate is best for Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans is a candidate who can win a general election and regain the majority," he said. "I don't know if Trump’s vision is just a candidate who supports Trump, but if it is, I think there’s probably many cases where those two things overlap."

"The only reason that we’re having this conversation is that Donald Trump is pissed off that Mitch McConnell told the truth about Jan. 6. That’s it," Holmes told The Courier Journal. "They don't have a competing vision for the future of the party."

Adam Enders, a University of Louisville political science professor, said Trump appears to be making a power play to try to pull the future of the GOP in his direction.

"Does he necessarily care about the viability of the GOP in the future?" Enders asked. "Maybe, maybe not. But ... this is sort of on brand for him, and he recognizes some cracks in the foundation of the party."

More:Lindsey Graham says Mitch McConnell speech slamming Trump could haunt Republicans in 2022

However, he said the ex-president will have a harder time getting Trumpian politicians elected to the Senate, which has statewide races, than he will in the House of Representatives, where elected officials represent smaller districts.

As for whether McConnell is likely to take the bait and bite back at Trump over the ex-president's lambasting, Holmes predicted that's unlikely. He pointed out McConnell is a man who hangs critical editorial cartoons about himself on his office walls and doesn't hang his head over personal jabs.

"The stuff that he takes extraordinarily seriously is the candidates and ... the health of the party," Holmes said. "But what somebody thinks of him, I think almost invariably, is immaterial to him."

'Worried about 2022'

McConnell and Trump were widely seen as an unlikely duo who gave conservatives something to crow about by appointing and confirming well over 200 federal judges, including three U.S. Supreme Court justices, over the past four years.

But the wreckage of their recently dissolved alliance has burst into public view at a time when the Republican Party is in the midst of a dilemma over whether to embrace Trump or try to sideline him after he lost the election and after some of his supporters violently breached the Capitol during last month's riot.

That tension was evident in a Fox News interview this week with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

"Mitch McConnell working with Donald Trump did a hell of a job. They’re now at each other’s throat," Graham said. "I’m more worried about 2022 than I’ve ever been. I don’t want to eat our own."

He cautioned against dismissing Trump's political influence, although he also said that "my beef is not with Mitch McConnell because he has the same policy views I do."

“But what I would say to Sen. McConnell: I know Trump can be a handful, but he is the most dominant figure in the Republican Party," Graham said. "We don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of taking back the majority without Donald Trump."

However, Enders noted some Trump voters aren't necessarily committed to the party itself.

People who engage in conspiratorial thinking and exhibit strong anti-establishment attitudes generally have been more likely to support Trump, even accounting for partisanship and ideology, he said. They're "wild cards," uninterested in status-quo conservative politics.

"For a lot of people in the mass public that really love Trump, they think about 'Trump, the outsider.' They don't care about 'Trump, the leader of the Republican Party,'" Enders said.

There are certainly Trump loyalists within the congressional GOP, as exemplified by a recent, unsuccessful attempt to oust Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., from her leadership post in the House after she voted to impeach Trump.

However, several experts The Courier Journal interviewed Wednesday said McConnell isn't likely to lose the support of the Senate Republican conference he leads.

“No doubt if it came down to a choice between McConnell and Trump, and Trump put the heat on for some of them, they’d probably vote for somebody else (as leader), but would it be a majority of the conference? I doubt it," said Sabato, of the University of Virginia. "McConnell’s done pretty well by them, and that’s what they care about."

Riddle, the Kentucky-based Democratic strategist, said the same but noted things could be different if McConnell can't help the GOP win back the Senate next year.

"I don't think he loses juice within the conference," he said. "Now, if they lose again in 2022 and we expand our majority and Trump can blame McConnell, then I think he’s in political danger. And I think (that's) why McConnell’s trying to make this move now: If they win back the majority, it kind of shuts up Trump."

Reach reporter Morgan Watkins: 502-582-4502; mwatkins@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @morganwatkins26.