Republicans' math problem on border emergency
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 1:36 PM ET, Tue February 26, 2019
... at the moment, the momentum is moving against Trump and Senate Republican leaders -- raising the possibility that the President could be forced to issue the first veto of his tenure on what is widely seen as his biggest campaign promise, an embarrassing moment to say the least. The latest crack in Republican support for Trump's wall -- or, at least, his decision to use his national emergency powers to funnel previously allocated funds to build the border barrier -- came Monday, when North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis (R) announced that he would vote for the disapproval resolution ...
Assuming that all 47 Democrats -- including the two independents who caucus with Democrats -- vote for the resolution that means that only one more Republican needs to defect in order to put the disapproval resolution on the President's desk. (No Democrat has come out and said they will oppose the measure; the two most likely to do so -- if any do -- are West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Alabama Sen. Doug Jones.)
Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) told CNN's Ted Barrett on Monday that while he would oppose the measure, he expected it to pass the Senate -- forcing Trump into a veto that would hold due to the fact that neither chamber would have the two-thirds majority to overturn it ...
The fact that Collins and Tillis are already on record as vote in favor of the disapproval resolution is telling when trying to sniff out who else might defect. Both are up for reelection in 2020 in states that are swing-y. A vote against the disapproval proposal would surely be fodder for their eventual Democratic opponents, who would use the vote to cast the incumbents as unquestioning backers of not just a proposal that a majority of the country opposes (Trump's border wall) but a President who is not terribly well-liked in either state ...
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/politics/senate-resolution-border-wall/index.html