I'm not so sure about that. As the article suggests, Trump apparently wasn't very consequential in the election.If the Rino’s do not get with the Trump Agenda they may face primary assaults from Trump supporters. - urbanpovertylawcenter
In the GA-06 race, Handel kept her distance from Trump and ended up outperforming him in her own district like most House Republicans did in 2018.
You make a good point. But.People who assume that Trump voters - and even neverTrumpers - were born yesterday should examine their premises closely. A lot has happened since Nixon resigned in 1974:
If the Paul Ryan types who sat out the presidential election think they will get a pass for allowing the Democrats to abuse the Trump Administration, they are courting primary challenges and, if they do win the primary, defeat in the general.
- The Republican Party got murdered in the 1974 congressional election.
- Bill Clinton was impeached for lying in court, was acquitted by the Senate, and subsequently lost his law license because he was guilty of the charge. Notwithstanding those facts, no Democrat Senator paid any price for contempt of the rule of law.
- The Obama maladministration. Pen and phone. Fast and Furious. Eric ("white people are cowards") Holder. Benghazi coverup, “awful video.” Intelligence operations directed at the party out of power during a presidential campaign. Lois Lerner (retired with pension).
Paul Ryan gave lukewarm support (at best) to Donald Trump last year, and won both his primary race and the general election handily. And yet Donald Trump won Ryan's home state of Wisconsin -- which Mitt Romney couldn't even do in 2012 with Ryan on the ballot as his running mate.
Trump won in 2016 by cobbling together a coalition of support from all over the political landscape. There is a lot of overlap between Trump's base of support and the supporters of GOP members of Congress, but it's probably a lot smaller than you might think.