
Yes-men hovering around Trump will only lead to a worse midterm beating for the GOP.

Surrounding Donald Trump with Republican sycophants  who apparently even pick out his favorite candies for dessert  will certainly lead the Republican Party to doom, one GOP strategist warns.

A Washington Post profile of California Rep. Kevin McCarthy detailed just how far Republicans are willing to go to placate Trump. McCarthy actually had a staffer go through a bag of Starburst candies and pick out the pink and red ones  Trump's favorites flavors  so they could be given to Trump in a jar.

It's that sort of pathetic attention that has helped McCarthy lift his personal stock within the Trump orbit of loyalists, according to the Post.


It was McCarthy who was with Trump on Sunday night outside of the Mar-a-Lago Florida resort where Trump unconvincingly announced to a reporter he wasn't a "racist," after he disparaged African countries as "shitholes" in an Oval Office meeting about immigration.

But another yes-man isn't what Trump or the party needs right now.

"I dont think being a Trump sycophant is going to do much in the long run for the party or holding the majority," Republican consultant Mike Murphy told the Post. "It doesnt change Trumps behavior, which is imperiling the party, and were getting to a place where challenging him is an imperative."

Democrats need to flip 24 seats to take control of the House. The Cook Political Report currently rates 63 GOP seats as being competitive in November. By comparison, just 21 Democrats seats are deemed to be competitive, while the rest are safe.

Some prominent Republicans are detecting strong headwinds and have backed off previous plans to challenge key Democrats this year. By contrast, Democrats are fielding a record number of candidates this year.

According to Federal Elections Commission filings, Democrats are poised to oppose every Republican in the House, minus just 20 seats. "By comparison, Democrats in 80 districts do not have a Republican opponent for their seat," The New York Times reports.

One Republican campaign strategist now tells ABC News, "The only question is whether Democrats win narrowly by picking up 25 seats or whether it is a blowout of more than 35 seats."

Interestingly enough, it was McCarthy himself who recently tried to inform Trump, gently, about how bad the party's chances look in November.

As the Post reported, McCarthy described scenarios to the president ranging from a bloodbath where Republicans lost the House and lost it big, in the words of one official, to an outcome in which they keep control while losing some seats.

McCarthy reportedly presented charts, instead of a memo, in hopes that Trump would pay attention. But that might not be as interesting to him as a jar of candy. And playing up to Trump at every opportunity will do nothing to avert the disastrous fate on the party's horizon.