Politico has an article titled, “Republicans see hope for midterms, despite Trump’s unpopularity.” It’s a counterview of the current common wisdom that Democrats are on their way to a “wave” (or “flood”) election this November. But while it bucks the trend, it buys the common narrative that Trump is unpopular. Is that true, and will it be?
Congressional Republicans believe their dismal electoral fortunes are turning around despite President Donald Trump’s unpopularity.. . . Using a slick PowerPoint presentation, Ryan attributed the Republicans’ comeback to the recently passed tax changes and said there is a path to keeping the House in GOP hands, citing polls that show big Democratic leads in the congressional ballot eroding.
In fact, the New York Post says that Trump is showing the GOP the way, not standing in the way of winning in November.
It’s an observation so strikingly true that you wonder why you didn’t think of it earlier. “Donald Trump,” a friend said the other day, “is teaching the Republican Party how to fight and how to win.”
The evidence is everywhere every day, and it was on vivid display Tuesday night. The president remains in a fighting mood, determined to keep punching his way forward. . .
The Trump way starts with the passage of the historic tax cuts despite tiny Republican majorities in Congress and scare tactics from the left. . . Another piece of evidence is that the government shutdown over the “Dreamers” was a huge defeat for Democrats. . . The decision by the House intelligence panel to write and release its memo on possible FBI misdeeds is yet more evidence of a new fighting spirit.
Of course, as the Bill Clinton campaign said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Focusing on people’s lives is what brought a young, Arkansas governor to the White House, throwing out a president whose popularity was almost universal just a year earlier. So the Hill says Democrats are freaking out about the economy.
Democrats sound plain silly as they continue to attack the GOP tax cuts.
Former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said at a recent town hall that $1,000 bonuses “wouldn’t go very far,” and they were taxable, so it wouldn’t really be $1,000 after all. Amazingly, she also said she hadn’t heard of any bonuses bigger than $1,000. . .
Here’s the bad news for Democrats: The good news from the tax bill is going to be bigger and more powerful in the months ahead, leading right up to the fall elections. The most important number contained in the fourth-quarter GDP report was a 6.8-percent rise in business nonresidential investment.
On the other hand, CNN notes that it will be a hard row to hoe for the GOP this year.
The House, in which Democrats need a 24-seat pickup to win the majority they lost in 2010, looks more favorable at the moment — largely due to the wide number of GOP-held seats in some level of jeopardy.
According to CNN ratings, 61 Republican seats are either toss-ups (15), leaning GOP (21) or likely GOP (25). Compare that to just 22 Democratic seats in any sort of jeopardy this fall and you begin to grasp the depth of Republican vulnerability. . .
The unevenness of the playing field is no guarantee for Democrats, of course. . .netting 24 seats is no easy task. Consider this: Even if Democrats win every one of the seats Clinton carried in 2016 that are currently held by a Democrat — and they won’t — the party would still be a single seat short of the majority.
But getting back to the main point, Dem hopes hang on Trump’s perceived unpopularity. But that is changing fast. Although Trump has been languishing in the 30s in the polls since last spring, a turnaround is evident. We prematurely predicted that turn here. It’s more obvious now. In just one day, Trump’s Real Clear Politics rating in its average of polls jumped a point and a half, to 41.5—even before Trump’s State of the Union (SOTU) address is figured in, and the SOTU ordinarily gives any president an extra point or two. Look at the obvious uptick in the chart:
Since December 15, we have a possible major bull market move. If the black line crosses 42 percent, we might be heading toward a very popular Trump—who could drag a lot of Congressional candidates up with him. Here’s the list of polls:
Just a few weeks ago, the polls were mostly in the 30s, some as low as 34%. Now, as you can see, Trump a full TEN POINTS higher, in he mid-40s. That’s not far from 50%, which in today’s America would be superstar range.
This is a surprise, of course. The betting site, PredictIt has “markets” in Trump’s approval, in individual polls, such as Gallup and Rassmussen, and also in averages, such as Real Clear Politics [RCP] and Five Thirty Eight.
Just a day before expiration, The RCP market in 41% approval was about 10 cents. You could have made a 1000% profit in one day if you believed in Trump’s upswing. Of course, that only happened because RCP arbitrarily chose to dispose of a recent poll that was in the 30s. Still, the trend is undeniable.
Trump has proven to be way more “Teflon” than Reagan ever was. Trump has said and done a hundred things that would have destroyed any other politician, and that “winning way” is a lot of what many Americans admire. And that includes the Koch brothers, who recently committed to spending much more than they did in the presidential election, which is unprecedented.
If Democrats think this will be their year, they may end up being more devastated than they were in 2004, or even 2016.
