GOP/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Donald Trump’s impulse to punch back at Republicans who challenge him is dividing the party in Arizona and threatening the 2018 re-election of Sen. Jeff Flake, one of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents.
Mr. Flake opposes Mr. Trump’s trade and border-wall plans, has criticized the president’s remarks about protests over a Confederate statue in Virginia, and wrote a book that alluded to ‘impulse-control problems’ and suggested the president had won election on a ‘sugar high of populism, nativism, and demagoguery.’
Mr. Trump, who last week called Mr. Flake ‘toxic’ and ‘weak on borders,’ is likely to whip up even more negative feelings about Arizona’s junior senator. Tuesday [8-22-17], the president is set to visit a Marine Corps facility in Yuma, near the Mexican border, before holding a rally in Phoenix that evening.
Already, the senator’s criticism is turning off some Trump voters. ‘It’s his attitude across the board to Trump,’ said Marilyn Higgins, a Republican from Fountain Hills who has called Mr. Flake’s office to say she can’t vote for the senator next year. ‘To him, Trump is the enemy.’
Mr. Flake won his seat in 2012 with 49% of the vote, just 3 percentage points ahead of his Democratic rival. His is considered one of the most vulnerable GOP-held seats next year, when the overall map favors Republicans as they look to expand their 52-seat Senate majority.”
-Siobhan Hughes, “Jeff Flake Draws Trump’s Ire, Complicating His Re-Election Bid,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 21, 2017 05:37pm