President Donald Trump’s lack of response to reports of Russian bounties for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan is giving Democratic Senate contenders hope that they’ve found a vulnerable flank to challenge White House loyalists in contested races.
Though lawmakers and political analysts still expect kitchen-table issues like the economy and the pandemic to dictate the balance of power in the Senate come November, the Trump administration’s continued appeasement of Russia, coupled with limited criticism from most Republicans in the upper chamber, appears to offer an opening for a foreign-policy challenge more understandable for voters than the convoluted Russia influence investigations that dominated Trump’s first term or the confusing Ukraine scandal that culminated in Trump’s impeachment this year.
