June 05, 2018 04:08 PM UTC

No Recess for You, Senate!

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Politico reports, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is doing Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) — who heads up the NRSC — a big favor by cancelling much of the August recess.

Mitch McConnell is canceling all but a week of the Senate’s traditional August recess, hoping to keep vulnerable Democrats off the campaign trail and confirm as many of President Donald Trump’s judicial and executive branch nominees as possible.

The Senate majority leader said Tuesday that the Senate will only take a break for the first week of August because of “historic obstruction” by Senate Democrats and will stay in session the rest of the month. McConnell was under enormous pressure from his own caucus as well as the president to cancel as much of the recess as possible, but the majority leader also saw an opportunity to unite Republicans and annoy incumbent Democrats…

…By keeping the Senate in session, McConnell will significantly cut down on the time that Democratic senators have to campaign back home, particularly for senators like Jon Tester (D-Mont.) who have lengthy commutes back to their states. In 2016, when McConnell’s own caucus was facing a number of difficult reelection campaigns, the Senate was not in session in August.

There are 26 Democratic Senators up for re-election in 2018, compared to just 9 Republicans.