Ms. Loeffler’s seat is one of a handful that Republicans have grown increasingly worried about. The others include Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado and Senator Martha McSally of Arizona.
Ms. McSally’s seat in particular troubles Mr. Trump’s advisers. The president has repeatedly asked if her candidacy is adversely affecting his own prospects in a state that has become more competitive, people familiar with the discussions have said.
In Georgia, Mr. Trump personally pushed the state’s governor, Brian Kemp, last fall to select Mr. Collins to fill the vacant Senate seat Ms. Loeffler now occupies.
...
Because Ms. Loeffler had little public profile before her appointment to the Senate, for many voters the questions about possible insider trading have been their introduction to her.
Some Republicans believe that the easiest way for Ms. Loeffler to turn around her campaign would be for Mr. Trump to support her.
“Most of this could be absolved or at least elided if President Trump was on board,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist.
But Mr. Donovan acknowledged that Ms. Loeffler was in something of a vise.
“The entire logic of picking Kelly was predicated on ‘we’re losing the suburbs, so you pick a Buckhead mom to win back Buckhead moms,’” he said, alluding to the tony Atlanta enclave. “But that’s only tenable if you don’t have to squander your potential outflanking Doug Collins for Fox News dads.”
Ms. Loeffler’s supporters in Washington want Mr. Trump to understand what he would be risking by abandoning the wealthy Ms. Loeffler: her husband, one top Senate Republican official noted on Friday, just donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s “super PAC” last month, and the couple have directed tens of thousands of dollars more to key Senate races.
...
The anxieties over the Georgia race come as multiple surveys indicate that the presidential campaign will also be competitive there. Mr. Trump carried Georgia by only five percentage points in 2016, and the state was not hotly contested.
G.O.P. officials who have talked to Mr. Trump’s political advisers say that the White House is growing concerned about the state, and that they have been watching voter registration numbers there with trepidation.
The president’s challenge in Georgia reflects his broader weakness among suburban voters. Even as he won the state four years ago, he lost Cobb County, outside of Atlanta, which for decades had been a reliably Republican bulwark.
This is what mystifies some of Ms. Loeffler’s supporters: Mr. Kemp’s private rationale for appointing Ms. Loeffler in the first place was that he hoped that she could slow the acceleration of suburban women away from the Republican Party.