Down-ballot Republicans will suffer under Donald Trump — and it’s their own fault

This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 14 episode of “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle.”

Since Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race, down-ballot Republicans appear to be getting nervous. Republicans are desperately trying to get former President Donald Trump to stay on message and focus on substance instead of attacking Harris for her crowd size and racial identity. 

The last time I was a down-ballot Republican, I was on the ballot with Trump in 2016. So let me tell you how hard this upcoming election will be for them.

The real problem here is, it’s not just that Trump is completely incapable of articulating an agenda — down-ballot Republicans really don’t have an agenda either. 

This is a cycle where House Republicans have nothing to take to the American people on virtually every piece of legislation of national consequence.

From raising the debt ceiling to keeping the government open to funding forces trying to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s march across Europe — it was Democrats, not Republicans, who actually led the governing coalition in Washington. 

So as much as these down-ballot Republicans are rightly suffering under Trump’s listless campaign — truly one of the worst presidential campaigns we’ve seen in modern history — most Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves because they don’t have a discernible agenda either.