The Senate GOP has decided to hold its own feeble protest vote on the nuclear deal:

Senate Republicans will try a second time on Tuesday to move ahead on a resolution rejecting the Iran nuclear deal, and the outcome is expected to be the same: Democrats are poised to block the measure and preserve President Barack Obama’s foreign policy win.

This vote will be even more of an empty gesture than the last one, and it will reinforce the message that the Senate GOP is hostile to the successful results of U.S. diplomacy. Far from aiding their cause in next year’s elections, these theatrics are more likely to hurt Republican candidates in the purple and blue states that give the party their current Senate majority. As the report says, the GOP is hoping “to make political points against Democrats and in future Senate races,” but in the Senate races where control of the chamber is likely to be decided this tactic probably won’t work.

There are a number of potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents up for re-election next year in Illinois, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania that were first elected in the 2010 wave, and there is at least one open seat created by Rubio’s presidential bid that Democrats have a decent chance of picking up. These were all states that voted for Obama in 2012, and almost all of them all very likely to back the Democratic candidate next fall as well. Making their most vulnerable Senate candidates vote repeatedly in a vain attempt to sabotage the nuclear deal is a waste of the Senate’s time, and it is also probably not going to be a smart political move.