Donald Trump's plummet in the polls doesn't seem to be hurting Republican senators in swing states
In states such as Ohio, Iowa, and Georgia, Trump's plummeting poll numbers haven't been detrimental to the incumbent Republicans on the ticket.
In the Buckeye State - a presidential bellwether where Sen. Rob Portman is facing off against ex-Gov. Ted Strickland - a Tuesday poll from NBC News/The Wall Street Journal found Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with a 5-point lead over Trump. But the same poll showed Portman with a 5-point lead over Strickland, one of the largest leads the Ohio Republican has enjoyed over his opponent.
That same NBC/WSJ poll found that, in Iowa, the former secretary of state had a 4-point lead over the Manhattan billionaire, one of her largest yet in the Hawkeye State. But in the Senate race between longtime Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and his challenger, former Lt. Gov. Patty Judge, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee found himself ahead by 10 points in the same poll. That margin was consistent with Grassley's largest lead of the cycle.
Georgia, a state where polls showed Clinton has taken a surprising lead, saw a similar split. Back to back polls that found Clinton to be ahead of Trump by 4 and 7 points in the reliably red state also found Sen. Johnny Isakson leading Georgia businessman Jim Barksdale by 6 and 9 points respectively.
Other states have shown similar effects, although Trump could still be dragging down the polls numbers of sitting senators a bit.
In Wisconsin, a Wednesday poll from Marquette Law School showed Clinton with a 10-point lead over Trump but found Sen. Ron Johnson outperforming the real estate magnate by 4-points in a battle against former Sen. Russ Feingold. In the Keystone State - a major battleground for both Trump and for Republicans looking to retain the Senate - four polls conducted since the conclusion of the DNC have shown Trump to be trailing Clinton by either 10 or 11 points. But over that same time span, two of those polls surveyed the race between Sen. Pat Toomey and Democratic nominee Katie McGinty. McGinty held a 2-point and 4-point lead, a much smaller gap than the one Clinton enjoyed.
The Senator who has been hit hardest by Trump's sagging polls has arguably been Sen. Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, who is trailing Gov. Maggie Hassan in a recent poll by 10-points in a race that, for most of the election cycle, has been extremely close. Still, Ayotte is outperforming Trump by 7-points in that poll, from WBUR, as the Republican nominee trailed Clinton by 17-points in the poll.