Since he entered the White House Donald Trump’s job approval numbers never surfaced above 50%, making him the first modern Chief Executive to never reach that mark during his first three and a half years in office. He was elected because he won three critical states by a grand total of less than 70,000 votes by ensuring that he strongly appealed to a dedicated minority of voters. Trump apparently decided that this was also a winning strategy going forward so he continued to cater to his base of voters, often at the expense of alienating the majority of Americans.
Idolized by his most ardent supporters, his coarseness and inability or unwillingness to raise the level of his behavior to that commensurate with his high office turned off many. His unwillingness to put anything above his own selfish self-interests, including the wellbeing of our country, marked him as unfit to lead. The drama and chaos and lies which Trump inflicts daily on the body politic has worn out most political observers and other Americans who pay attention to the world around them.
Presidents are most often judged by how well they handle the worse challenges they encounter while they are in office, so the COVID-19 pandemic provided Trump with an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership skills. However, he and his administration got off to a rough start by disregarding warnings of the coming pandemic and thereby failed to properly prepare the nation for its onslaught.
However, by mid-March and the start of the administration’s daily COVID-19 briefings, it became apparent to the public that Trump and his people had started to take the pandemic seriously and by April 6th Trump’s average approval numbers rose to 45.2% for the first time since the early days after his inauguration. That was also the only day of Trump’s presidency that his average disapproval rating slipped below 50% (to 49.6%) but it was not to last.
Under the weight of Trump’s constant stream of disinformation and disingenuous self-congratulations, the majority of Americans began to lose faith in his ability to lead them through this crisis. The gap between his average disapproval and approval ratings began to grow ever wider. Today (6/19/20) according to an average of all polls, 55.2% the voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing while only 41.4% approve (a gap of 13.8%) and it appears that this gap will continue to widen as older polls age off of the averages. No president in recent history with job approval numbers that low at this point before the election has ever gone on to win a second term.
Much of Trump’s current unpopularity can be traced to his perceived failures during the pandemic. 54.7% of Americans disapprove of the job he has done during this crisis while only 41.8% approve. Among independents who decide many presidential elections, only 37.7% approve of how Trump has led this nation during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a new factor has entered into the equation – the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter demonstrations and protests.
Trump’s “law and order” message, which apparently pleases his base, no longer has the same mass appeal as it did during the days of Ronald Regan and subsequent Republican presidents. While Trump has often characterized the protestors anarchists and terrorists, most Americans have disagreed. A Washington Post–Schar School poll released recently showed that 74% of Americans supported the George Floyd protests. On the other hand, only 35% approved of the way that Trump has responded to the protests while 61% said they disapproved or strongly disapproved. Of the total 47% said they strongly disapproved.
According to USA Today, polls from CBS News, Emerson College, Reuter/Ipsos, and Monmouth University also found that most Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the protests and the underlying racial issues. So Trump’s approach to the current unrest has added the public’s unhappiness with his failures during the pandemic and their disillusionment with the character of the man in general.
Trump’s problems have also put other nationally elected Republicans in jeopardy. While all 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be up for grabs in November, no seasoned political analyst has ever seriously considered the possibility of the Republicans taking control of that chamber away from the Democrats. Pelosi’s troops currently hold a 39 seat majority in the House, the Republicans have to defend more open seats, and Democrats are currently favored in the majority of the most competitive elections. Odds are that the Democrats will maintain control of the House.
On the other hand, if Biden were to defeat Trump, which seems more likely every day, the Republicans must maintain control of the Senate if they are to keep the Democrats from totally dominating the national government and passing whatever legislation they see fit. At the beginning of this year the very thought of the Democrats taking over the Senate would have been seen as laughable.
The Republicans currently hold a three seat advantage in the Senate. With Doug Jones likely to be defeated by his Republican opponent in Alabama, the Democrats would have to win at least four Republican held seats to gain at least a 50-50 tie in the Senate. That tie could then be theoretically broken by Joe Biden’s vice president. Early on the possibility that the Democrats could actually flip four seats was considered highly unlikely.
But as they say, the times they are a changing. The vast majority of Republican Senate incumbents have been unable, or at least unwilling, to adequately separate themselves from their failing president. They are in “damned if they do and damned if they don’t” situations. If they publicly disavow any of Trump’s more ludicrous statements or actions, he will come after them with a vengeance that could easily destroy their chances in their Republican primaries and general elections. However, if by their silence they essentially tie themselves to Trump’s coattails, those Republicans in more competitive Senate elections might well find themselves in trouble.
Currently elections involving nine Republican held Senate seats are considered competitive. In order of perceived vulnerability, those seats are currently held by the following Republican incumbents: Martha McSally of Arizona, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Steve Daines of Montana, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, and Joni Ernst of Iowa. Then there is the open seat formerly held by a Republican in Kansas.
Of these Democrats, Scott Kelly has a commanding lead over McSally in Arizona. John Hickenlooper also has a huge lead over Cory Gardner in Colorado. Both top-rated contenders for the Democratic Senate nomination in Maine, Sara Gideon and Betsy Sweet, currently have narrow polling leads over Susan Collins. Democrat Cal Cunningham and Republican Thom Tillis are in a neck-and-neck race in North Carolina while in Montana, popular Democratic Governor Steve Bullock is 7% ahead of Republican incumbent Steve Daines in the most recent poll.
Kansas Republicans were sorry to see that Mike Pompeo decided not to quit his current Secretary of State job to run for this empty seat. That leaves Democrat nominee Barbara Bollier in a virtual dead heat with each of her three possible Republican challengers. In Georgia Democrat John Ossoff has a slight 1% lead over incumbent Republican Senator David Perdue in the latest poll. In the Iowa senate race Democrat Theresa Greenfield has held a 2% to 3% lead over Republican incumbent Joni Ernst in the last three polls.
So a Democratic takeover of the US Senate, once considered an impossible task, now seems entirely possible if not likely. There can be no doubt that all of the Republican Senate candidates in these races are being weighed down by their apparent inability to separate themselves from their very unpopular president. However, repudiating him now would also devastate their chances of claiming victory.
On the other hand, a clean sweep by the Democrats of the White House and both houses of Congress in November might be the best thing in the long run for the Republican party, especially if Trump is beaten so soundly that he can’t claim with any veracity that he was cheated out of a second term. If that happens perhaps all but the most zealous Trump supporters will become convinced that they have been traveling the wrong road for the last four years and come to their senses. Without that reawakening, Trumpism will continue to be an albatross around the Republican Party’s neck for some time to come because everyone knows Trump will not go quietly into the night after the election.
Note: The polls sighted can be found on 538 websites, here, here, and here.
Cajun 6/19/2020