A diesel crisis, an unpopular war in the Mideast (is there another kind of Mideast war?), soaring mortgage rates and no respite from a generalized affordability crisis entering its sixth year.
If that’s not a recipe for an electoral wipeout, I don’t know what is. Thankfully for Republicans ahead of the US mid-terms, the GOP’s a personality cult. And cult leaders have visited upon their followers much worse than high prices without much in the way of defection.
I’m joking. Sort of. About as much as Donald Trump was joking when he grimly quipped, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, ok?” (As it turns out, Trump might not lose his freedom either, just as long as he could make the case that the shooting was an official act.)
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week showed Trump’s approval rating was just 32%, the worst of his political career.
The figure above shows Trump’s net approval. The -34% figure reflects a dramatic souring of public opinion versus the beginning of his second term, when a net 6% of voters approved of his job performance. Simply put: The more “work” Trump does, the less favorably Americans view his leadership.
As Reuters was keen to point out, a mere 17% of poll respondents said they approved of Trump’s handling of the cost of living. That’s a veritable disaster.
Setting aside obligatory ethnocentric dog whistling and naked appeals to xenophobic nationalism, Trump ran on a promise to address America’s affordability crisis. It worked. But he hasn’t delivered, and it shows in the polling.
As the figure shows, cost of living is (by far) Trump’s worst issue in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, and that’s generally true across national surveys. Immigration’s his “best,” but even there Trump’s underwater.
As discussed here, the GOP’s at risk of losing key senate and gubernatorial races in November, and notwithstanding Trump’s notorious magnetism, he’s losing Republican support. This is just one data point, but in the Reuters poll documented above, his intra-party support fell 9ppt WoW through last Sunday, to a still high 73%.
In the final read on University of Michigan sentiment for September, released on Friday, survey director Joanne Hsu noted that while this month’s interviews “reveal[ed] broad agreement across the political spectrum that the outlook for the economy has weakened since the beginning of the year,” sentiment among Republicans evidenced “particularly large declines” this month.
The figure above, from the Michigan data, shows the drop-off in expectations by party identification versus the beginning of Trump’s second term. It’s largest for Independents and Republicans.
Obviously, the larger decline in part reflects the fact that sentiment among Democrats didn’t have as far to fall, but it’s nevertheless bad news for the GOP that the voters they need are far less optimistic about the economic outlook than they were before the war. After all, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
In the same editorial cited above, Hsu offered a disconcerting explanation for an ostensible “improvement” in perceptions of current buying conditions for durable goods. Households, she said, increasingly believe that “completing such purchases now [will] help avoid higher prices in the future.” That’s the demand pull-forward effect. And that’s the stuff runaway inflation’s made of.
If you’re wondering whether Trump’s worried about any of this, the answer’s not really. Or not publicly. On Thursday, while perpetuating another bitter dispute with the press, Trump described himself as “a man whose Popularity has grown because of the unprecedented SUCCESS our Country is having on both the World Stage and at home.”
Too bad Bernie Sanders and AOC are the spokesmen for the democrats. If they had some decent governor from some well run state to start speaking up, even these midterms could save us. Is Trump secretly funding those people?
The word “decent” is anathema to media coverage.
The SCOTUS just facilitated the voter purge factor for those states that will use federal citizen database. Some of these competitive races now will be considered potentially competitive later today…..The Purge Election Year!
I agree with LEE 2253, the democrats need to find a lot more moderates to represent the party too. This is what usually happens when the political pendulum swing from one populist right leaning extreme to…well, we shall see.
Brown in her dissent points out tries to soften this decision that as we’re in the 90 day period before an election a full purge cannot be accomplished, but I agree with you in that certain TX counties are likely going to be scrutinized via “new” SAVE. The probability of mid-term chaos is increasing.
Probability of January 2021 redux has increased. This time the attack will be from the Federal Government.
I honestly think he doesn’t care anymore, he’s over being President. To him, the office is just a boring, side hustle. Like someone who holds down a real job, but what they’re really into and looking at all day is crypto. I had a laugh a few days ago when I heard someone call him a, “messy b*tch who just loves drama.”
This is exactly right.
Lee, Pete, Dems do have a good corral of governors that are speaking out—-Wes Moore(MD)—-Josh Shapiro(PA)—-Andy Beshear(TN)—-Kathy Hochel(NY)—-JD Pritzker(IL)—-Gavin Newsome(CA)—-Tim Walz(MN)—-Mikie Sherrill(NJ)—to name a few.
I wish CNN, MS-NOw, and Politico would stop with TV coverage of Trump in the Oval sitting around with his cabinet pretending to be “Presidential” or drinking tea with Xi. Instead, prime time spotlighting these governors you mentioned as well as some of the reasonable and capable Republican governors. They need the mike, and it would drive Trump crazy to be pre-empted on TV. A real fight instead of the same old made for TV Strong Man Trump takes on the wimpy Fake News organizations who go whine to the courts that they are being picked on.
It was reported Ken Paxton’s wife said the cult part out loud.
According to Texas Tribune she said: With estranged husband on the ballot, Angela Paxton tells group of Texas women to vote GOP “even if we’re mad at them”
Party over everything else.
I could swear there’s a term for this, but I’m pretty sure it’s in German.
Reminder that the GOP can’t lose in November if the elections don’t happen. I’ve been saying it since the day he got re-elected: Trump absolutely will declare a “national emergency” (likely some nebulous claim of fraud related to voter-rolls) to “delay” the elections. I hope I’m wrong, but if I’m not we can officially mark November 3, 2026 as the day America ended.
This seems unlikely to me. Hard to “believe” the polls though, given the history of Democrats getting sucked into erroneous hope often attributed to many “secretly” supporting Trump/Republicans. Between redistricting, voter suppression, the $$$ imbalance, and the much sneakier version of ICE being likely to show at the polls to scare away anyone of color (coupled with the big shift in Latino support back away from Trump) the Midterms may be a lot closer than expected. BTW do you think most Democrats would switch their votes to Trump/Republicans if gas prices were low and we weren’t fighting Iran? Identity runs deep.
I sincerely hope you’re wrong as well. As has been mentioned on here before, while we sometimes wish for the worst so that things would change and snap people’s perceptions back towards common sense, this event would absolutely ruin us as a country. Those already at a breaking point with this administration would start moving beyond protests. I’d predict an absolute roiling of the economy as a large chunk of the workforce stops everything from functioning until the madness stops and we can vote normally.
If his “P”opularity has grown, the polls and surveys certainly ain’t reflecting any of it.