PoliticoAmy Coney Barrett papers over rift between Donald Trump and Republican Party

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan on politico.com on October 12, 2020.

Just about the only thing holding the Republican Party together right now is Amy Coney Barrett.

President Donald Trump’s sinking poll numbers are putting once-safe Senate seats in play and threatening deeper losses in the House. Republicans are unenthusiastic about defending Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic or commenting on his latest string of Twitter rants.

And Senate Republicans are painfully at odds with Trump and top administration officials over their attempts to reach an expensive Covid relief deal with Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Republican senators savaged the outlines of a White House proposal in a conference call over the weekend, although few Republicans are willing to openly break with Trump just yet.

Fear of Trump remains high in Republican Party circles, and Republicans know that their fate is inexorably tied to the president’s own results. Yet at the moment, it’s not clear Trump has the juice within his party to cut a big spending deal with Democrats.

Meanwhile, there is near unanimous support for Barrett, the type of Supreme Court nominee that Senate Republicans would have confirmed for a President Marco Rubio or a President Ted Cruz. So some in the party say they should take the win in front of them and wait until after the election to pass a coronavirus relief package that would split the party – even if it could boost both Trump’s flailing re-election campaign and the party’s battle to keep the Senate.