Republicans on Capitol Hill have reasons to unite behind Donald Trump

By Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times News Service

Sunday, May 15, 2016 | 6:03 a.m.

WASHINGTON — After meeting with Donald Trump this past week, Speaker Paul Ryan uttered the words many in his party longed to hear: “I do believe that we are now planting the seeds to get ourselves unified.”

It is hard to win without party unity, as both Democrats and Republicans have learned. But neither party has confronted the prospect of a candidate denounced by some of its leading lights as a pathological liar unfit to be commander in chief and in need of therapy.

Here are four reasons congressional Republicans are desperate for unity this year, and for Ryan to endorse Trump.

1. Do the math

Congressional districts are far more gerrymandered than they were even 20 years ago; Republican members of Congress, by and large, come from very Republican districts. In the relatively few swing districts, Republicans cannot afford to alienate their base voters, many of whom may have voted for Trump in the primary (or other Republican presidential candidates) but could stay home in November if they are put off by party infighting.

And in Senate elections, no-show voters are a threat to incumbency. “Parties want to win, and if they have sharp divisions it makes it that much more difficult” down the ballot, said Robert Dallek, a presidential historian.

2. The death of ticket splitting

Republican senators in swing states — like Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire — can hope that the voters who reject Trump will still pull the lever for them.

But the practice of splitting a ticket hit a low in 2012, when only 10 percent of voters divided their ballots between parties.

3. They think they can control him

Then there is the nature of Trump himself, whose policy positions are most politely understood as flexible. Congressional Republicans hope that if he becomes president, it will be they, not he, setting the agenda in Washington.

This stands in contrast to a candidate whose views were out of sync with the party faithful: Barry Goldwater in 1964.

“People felt Barry Goldwater was a menace who could get the country in nuclear war,” Dallek said of the race between Goldwater and President Lyndon B. Johnson. “Republicans in the business community had to support Johnson because they thought Goldwater was reckless.”

In contrast, Dallek said, “I think Republicans may feel they can control Trump because he is such a novice. Goldwater was just too principled, if you want to put it that way, and he would not bend. Trump is more an opportunist. If people see you in politics as an opportunist, it is destructive to your appeal. But if they see you as shifting in the service of some sort of broader pragmatic design, that’s an important distinction.”

4. If you can’t beat 'em, join ’em

The policy areas in which Trump has shown the most commitment — trade and immigration — are ones Congressional Republicans who oppose him realize they may not be able to win. They seem poised to cede them in the name of broad unity with Trump on other matters.

“The party elites are in a far different place than the party faithful,” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist. He added: “The neo-cons hate Trump because the rap on him is that we won’t go to war. Well, a lot of Americans like that. The big problem Jeb Bush had was that he couldn’t figure out what to say about Iraq. Trump said it was wrong, and that’s where the country is.”

The strongest — and increasingly isolated — foils of Trump are those who have no electoral risk. His biggest critics on Capitol Hill among Republicans are those not up for re-election — Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Others who were not elected serve as reminders that many in the party once found, and continue to believe, that Trump’s behavior and statements demonstrate he is unfit for office.

“I consider him to be a malicious and malignant figure on the American political landscape — cruel, crude, vindictive, obsessive, narcissistic, a nativist and xenophobe, a man who seems to relish demeaning and dehumanizing others,” wrote Peter Wehner, a former director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives under President George W. Bush and friend of Ryan’s, in an opinion article.

Ryan has to weigh his conscience along with the party unity so many seek. It is a call that poses risks to him either way.