Fredreka Schouten

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The turmoil enveloping the Republican Party and its presidential nominee Donald Trump already has begun to roil Senate races.

One sign: Priorities USA Action, a Democratic group that has focused entirely on electing Democrat Hillary Clinton, is seizing on the trouble at the top of the ticket to expand its focus into Senate contests.

The group, the election’s best-funded super PAC with more than $133 million raised through the end of August, could run ads to help Democratic candidates in New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada, according to an individual familiar with its plans.. The PAC’s spending plans, first reported by CNN, have been met with dismay by Republicans already struggling to defend 24 seats to Democrats’ 10 and to protect their majority in the Senate.

“Our map was difficult to begin with,” said Andrea Bozek, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm for Senate Republicans.

Lewd Trump tape hurts vulnerable GOP senators, puts Senate control at risk

Bozek praised GOP candidates for running campaigns focused on local issues, rather than the presidential contest, but added: “Anyone who wants to help the Senate majority, should send their donations to NRSC.org.”

Vulnerable GOP incumbents have raced to distance themselves from Trump in recent days, following the public disclosure of a 2005 tape of the New York businessman making lewd comments about groping women. On Tuesday, Trump fired back on Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. John McCain, the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee who is facing re-election in Arizona.

“It is so nice that the shackles have been taken off me, and I can fight for America the way that I want to,” Trump remarked in one tweet.

Some Republican strategists say they won’t know how much damage the Trump tape and his attacks on the GOP establishment have inflicted until new polls emerge in individual Senate contests later this week.

“We’re sailing into some uncharted waters,” said Scott Reed, a senior political strategist with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who managed Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign. “We’ve never had a nominee express such disdain for the leadership of the party.”

He said the chamber saw these “storm clouds developing months ago,” and launched a “Save the Senate” effort shortly after Trump secured the nomination in May to protect Senate Republicans. The group recently started a “Vote for Jobs” turnout campaign to help companies to encourage their employees to register and get to the polls.

Individual GOP candidates and other outside groups, such as the network affiliated with conservative billionaire Charles Koch, also are running their own voter-turnout operations, aimed, in part, at finding voters willing to back Republican Senate contenders, even if they refuse to support Trump in November.

If Clinton wins the White House, Democrats need to net just four seats to take the majority with a Democratic vice president breaking ties. The Cook Political Report, an independent political handicapper, rates seven contests — those in Nevada, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — as tossups. All but Nevada are currently held by Republicans.

In New Hampshire, first-term Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is locked in a tight battle Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, withdrew her support for Trump over the weekend.

But Fergus Cullen, a former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, said Trump’s last-minute “murder-suicide” mission against his own party may be too much for Ayotte and other Republicans to withstand.

Trump declares war on establishment Republicans

“In the course of two weeks, it has gone from Kelly Ayotte looking like she could weather the storm to now looking like she could be one of the innocent bystanders caught up in the blast zone,” said Cullen, a Trump opponent who said he’s considering writing in Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

“If Kelly loses one in 10 New Hampshire Trump voters who refuse to vote for her, that works out to be 3% or 4% of the general-election vote," he said. "She doesn’t have 3% or 4% to spare.”