When Will The Trumpanzee Be So Radioactive That Even The Peter And Steve Kings Of The World Start Abandoning Him?

The new poll out this morning from Vox Populi of New Hampshire registered voters confirmed what pollsters are seeing nationally-- a Trumpanzee meltdown. In a 4-way race, Hillary leads Mr. Trumpanzee 41-31% with Gary Johnson at 11% and Jill Stein at 3%. What worries New Hampshire Republicans far more than the collapse of Mr. T, is that he's dragging down incumbent Senator Kelly Ayotte, who can't give a clear answer about where she stands on supporting Trump. The poll shows Democrat Maggie Hassan beating her 46 to 43%, which would be catastrophic for Republican hopes to hold onto a Senate majorty. Mr. T seems to be losing whatever grip he had on reality; he's in never-never land, seemingly in some kind of an alternative universe, perhaps even believing what he said this morning, namely that "the polls are closing up very rapidly. I have a whole other group out there that people don't even know about." Perhaps because they're not registered to vote?

Trumpist congressmen are starting to worry. According to a report in today's Hill "gloom is setting in for GOP lawmakers and strategists who increasingly think Donald Trump will lose the presidential race, and their party will be left in the political wilderness. 'I’m not feeling great about the immediate future of the conservative movement right now,' said one southern lawmaker, a Trump supporter. 'As a conservative who believes our ideas are good for America, it is pretty gloomy these days.' A handful of House GOP lawmakers say they are already bracing for what could be a lopsided Trump defeat this fall. 'It’s an uphill battle,' acknowledged retiring Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), who first endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), then Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and finally Trump after he won the nomination. 'I think it will be Hillary,' predicted a northeastern House GOP lawmaker who is publicly backing Trump. 'If I had to bet, I'd definitely ‎bet that Trump loses,' said another House GOP lawmaker who is opposed to Trump. 'This is like a football game where you hate both teams. You root for a tie-- and maybe some minor injuries.'" Or maybe some major ones. On CNBC's Squawk Box this morning the chronically constipated insomniac said that "all I do is tell the truth. If at the end of 90 days, I fall short that's OK. I have a very good way of life." Yes, he does; what does it matter to him? But what about the destruction of the careers of Republicans up and down the ballot, like Ayotte? They haven't spent their lives cheating and robbing and amassing immense wealth. It looks like he doesn't care one bit that he's leaving the GOP a smouldering ruin. In his Washington Post OpEd yesterday, former Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-FL)-- AKA, "Morning Joe"-- explained that his party "must dump Trump."

The Muslim ban, the David Duke denial, the “Mexican” judge flap, the draft dodger denigrating John McCain’s military service, the son of privilege attacking an immigrant Gold Star mother and the constant revisionism and lying about past political positions taken are but a few of the lowlights that have punctuated Donald Trump’s chaotic chase for the presidency.

Any one of these offenses would have disqualified any other candidate for president.

...Paul Ryan and every Republican leader should denounce in the strongest terms their GOP nominee suggesting conservatives could find the Supreme Court more favorable to their desires if his political rival was assassinated.

Paul Ryan and every Republican leader should revoke their endorsement of Donald Trump. At this point, what else could Trump do that would be worse than implying the positive impact of a political assassination?

The Republican Party needs to start examining quickly their options for removing the Republican nominee.

A bloody line has been crossed that cannot be ignored. At long last, Donald Trump has left the Republican Party few options but to act decisively and get this political train wreck off the tracks before something terrible happens.

Former New Hampshire Senator Gordon Humphrey (R) is demanding that the RNC kick Mr. Trumpanzee off the ticket and replace him with an actual garden variety Republican. Former Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT) announced he's voting for Hillary Clinton, the more conventionally conservative of the two candidates. Ex-U.S. Senator Dave Durenberger (R-MN) and ex-Congresswoman Connie Morella (R-MD) announced yesterday that they're both voting for Hillary. GOP neocon war criminal John Negroponte announced that he too isn't just "not voting for Trump" but is going to vote for Hillary. And Carla Hills, Bush's Trade Rep who negotiated the original NAFTA agreement also said she's with Hillary.

In his NY Post column, rigfht-wing activist John Podhoretz worried that the GOP majority could get wiped out in November thanks to public revulsion over Trumpanzee. Many Republican operatives are worried about what he's saying, namely that "Three months before the election, the news is pretty much all bad for Republicans-- so bad, in fact, that the question it raises is whether November is going to see a Democratic wave that not only washes Hillary Clinton into the White House but also secures majorities for Democrats in the Senate and even in the House of Representatives... [I]f Hillary wins Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina, that would be indicative of a national 'wave'-- a win so broad and deep that it flips downballot races to the Democrats. And this is what terrifies other Republicans-- that a wholesale rejection of Trump will combine with the 'brand' problems of the GOP to threaten anyone and everyone who might be vulnerable. Democrats need to net four seats in the Senate to take control (assuming a Hillary victory). The GOP figures two are already gone (Mark Kirk in Illinois and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin). The popular former Democratic senator and governor of Indiana, Evan Bayh, seems likely to prevail in the Senate race there. Which means Democrats only need one or two more."

Podhoretz says he's worried about Kelly Ayotte (NH), Pat Toomey (PA), Richard Burr (NC) and John McCain (AZ). He's already figured out that Rubio will be safe as long as Schumer bamboozles Florida Democrats into nominating Patrick Murphy August 30. (If Grayson overcomes Schumer and Murphy, Rubio might as well look for a new job draining sitting water in Miami-Dade.) But a more interesting perspective on the unfolding GOP catastrophe was the subject of Josh Kraushaar's Wednesday post for the National Journal, Why Mainstream Republicans Fear Señor Trumpanzee-- or, more to the point, the rabid dogs who are part of his very dangerous anti-democratic (small "d") cult of personality. He wrote that to understand why elected Republicans are sticking with Trumpanzee even after he called on NRA nuts to assassinate Hillary Clinton after she's elected calls for a psychologist but, he adds, "if Trump gets angry and slams down-bal­lot Re­pub­lic­ans, his sup­port­ers are likely to fol­low his lead and pun­ish the tar­gets of his wrath. After all, they are far more loy­al to Trump than they are to the GOP." [Tuesday night, though, even with Trumpy-the-Clown cheerleaders Ann Couler, Sarah Palin and Phyllis Schafly openly campaigning for lunatic fringe anti-Ryan candidate Paul Nehlen, Nelhlen only garnered 10,852 votes (16%) against Ryan's 57,391 in the Wisconsin primary. The only Trumpist congressional candidate Mr. Trumpanzee actually campaigned for so far was Rep. Renee Ellmers, who lost her North Carolina seat with just 23.64% of the vote.]

Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers have main­tained a fra­gile détente with Trump since he locked up the nom­in­a­tion. It’s why they were so alarmed when Trump didn’t re­spond in kind when he de­nounced John Mc­Cain and Kelly Ayotte in an in­ter­view with the Wash­ing­ton Post, while with­hold­ing an en­dorse­ment of House Speak­er Paul Ry­an. His threat to with­hold en­dorse­ments of his party’s most vul­ner­able mem­bers threatened to shat­ter the peace with party reg­u­lars. Adding in­sult to in­jury, he half-heartedly re-en­dorsed them last Fri­day in Wis­con­sin, read­ing from a sheet of pa­per while do­ing so.

This is why Re­pub­lic­ans on a bal­lot in 2016 are sup­port­ing Trump, even if their back­ing is de­cidedly luke­warm. It’s why John Mc­Cain has main­tained his per­func­tory en­dorse­ment of Trump. It’s why Flor­ida Sen. Marco Ru­bio held a sol­id anti-Trump pos­ture, un­til he re­con­sidered run­ning for the Sen­ate and re­cog­nized he needed Trump’s sup­port­ers to win. It’s why even Jeb Bush’s son, Texas Land Com­mis­sion­er George P. Bush, told sup­port­ers he was re­luct­antly back­ing Trump. He has a polit­ic­al fu­ture to tend to, after all.

All these Re­pub­lic­ans have cal­cu­lated that the costs of split­ting with Trump-- even when he’s nas­tily de­noun­cing them-- are great­er than the costs of los­ing the sup­port of his core voters. This isn’t just a primary elec­tion prob­lem. It’s a re­cog­ni­tion that the Trump voters will fol­low the whims of their lead­er, no mat­ter what he says, through the gen­er­al elec­tion. And if Re­pub­lic­an of­fice­hold­ers aren’t suf­fi­ciently loy­al enough to Trump, his sup­port­ers will make them pay a price.

...[F]or Trump’s re­luct­ant sup­port­ers, here’s where the Faus­ti­an bar­gain falls apart. The pre­vail­ing wis­dom among the GOP es­tab­lish­ment is that if Trump loses, he quietly re­turns to Trump Tower and shrinks away from the polit­ic­al scene. It’s this same lo­gic that com­pelled Re­pub­lic­ans to in­sist, against all evid­ence, that Trump would be­come more “pres­id­en­tial” once he locked up the nom­in­a­tion.

It’s be­com­ing in­creas­ing hard to see that out­come, es­pe­cially as he raises the specter of a rigged elec­tion a full three months be­fore Novem­ber. One of Trump’s me­dia boost­ers, Fox News host Sean Han­nity, has already pree­mpt­ively blamed anti-Trump Re­pub­lic­ans for cost­ing the GOP nom­in­ee this elec­tion.

In real­ity, Trump has poured gas­ol­ine on a long­stand­ing di­vide with­in the Re­pub­lic­an party between the anti-es­tab­lish­ment pop­u­lists and the busi­ness-minded elites. His huge pub­lic plat­form re­vealed a fis­sure that is not likely to heal with one elec­tion. Trump has pub­li­cized anti-free trade, anti-im­mig­ra­tion, and nat­iv­ist views that GOP lead­ers have largely kept in check. The fact that Trump man­aged to pick off a healthy num­ber of Ru­bio and Jeb Bush back­ers on his way to the nom­in­a­tion con­firms that the old con­ser­vat­ive co­ali­tion no longer ex­ists.

Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers are choos­ing to pre­tend that these dif­fer­ences don’t ex­ist, pre­fer­ring to na­ively pro­claim that Trump will em­brace Paul Ry­an’s con­ser­vat­ive agenda if he’s elec­ted pres­id­ent. That’s not what his voters signed up for. It’s why Trump’s rote es­pous­al of more-tra­di­tion­al GOP po­s­i­tions, such as his eco­nom­ic speech at the De­troit Eco­nom­ic Club on Monday, will fall flat.

More likely, he will con­tin­ue to use his out­size pub­lic plat­form to settle old scores. He might even try and launch his own tele­vi­sion net­work to broad­cast the pop­u­lism that pro­pelled his can­did­acy. He’s not go­ing away, and neither are his core voters. The only ques­tion is wheth­er more tra­di­tion­al GOP lead­ers have the cha­risma and cred­ib­il­ity to bring Trump par­tis­ans in­to a new-look GOP, or wheth­er his sup­port­ers will con­tin­ue to stir up trouble with­in the party.

How excited are Democrats to have so many high profile Republicans-- like war criminal John Negroponte-- rushing to embrace Hillary? As one friend of mine put it this morning, many of the men on that Republicans for Hillary list were actually involved in authorizing killing people and promoting hatred and crashing our economy. We should welcome rank and file Republicans but the architects of disaster should be held accountable and not celebrated. As Michael Barbaro and Amy Chozick noted in the NY Times yesterday, Republican women are running from the Trumpanzee embrace as fast as they can.

Of all the tribulations facing Donald J. Trump, perhaps none is stirring as much anxiety inside his campaign as the precipitous decline of support from Republican women, an electoral cornerstone for the party’s past nominees that is starting to crumble.

In a striking series of defections, high-profile Republican women are abandoning decades of party loyalty and vowing to oppose Mr. Trump, calling him emotionally unfit for the presidency and a menace to national security.

But even more powerfully, his support from regular Republican women is falling after Mr. Trump’s provocative remarks about everything from the silence of the mother of a slain Muslim soldier to how women should respond to sexual harassment in the workplace.

“For people like me, who are Republican but reasonable and still have our brains attached, it’s hard to see Trump as a reasonable, sane Republican,” said Dina Vela, a project manager in San Antonio who said she had always voted Republican and remained wary of Hillary Clinton. But to her own surprise, she has started visiting Mrs. Clinton’s campaign website and plans to vote for her.

Since the two parties held their nominating conventions, Mr. Trump’s lead over Mrs. Clinton with Republican women voters has declined by 13 percentage points, according to polls conducted by the New York Times and CBS News.

The danger for Mr. Trump is that the erosion could accelerate as leading Republican women publicly break with him, making an argument that the national interest must supersede party loyalty... “We’re Republicans, she’s a Democrat, but the policy disagreements we have are far outweighed by the danger that Donald Trump poses to America,” said Jennifer Pierotti Lim, a lifelong Republican and an executive at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who has pledged her support to Mrs. Clinton and spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

But Barbaro and Chotzick acknowledged that for the Clinton Machine, the alienation of Republican women from the Trumpanzee "creates a rare opportunity to capture a coveted demographic. But it poses a dilemma as well. Skeptical liberals are already looking for signs of betrayal from Mrs. Clinton, making it dangerous for her to make overt or ideological appeals to Republican women." Skeptical liberals don't have to look far-- who'd she pick for her running mate for example and why was she down in South Florida campaign for universally loathed corrupt and divisive Debbie Wasserman Schultz this week?  Is that an indication of what kind of garbage she'll be stocking her administration with? How could it not be? But Barbaro mimics the campaign spin to point out that "Instead, she is making her case to them by emphasizing kitchen-table issues like job creation and by raising doubts about Mr. Trump[anzee]’s temperament." I guess "I'm the lesser of two evils" will never work... since that's what Trump is using.

UPDATE: And South Carolina????

South Carolina has been reliably Republican for quote some time now, although Obama did hit 44.9% against McCain. But just-released polling from PPP shows even there Mr. Trumpanzee may be increasingly beyond the pale for suburban voters. He only has a 2 point lead over Hillary:

• Mr. Trumpanzee- 41%
• Hillary- 39%
• Gary Johnson- 5%
• Jill Stein- 2%

"The closeness," explained PPP Director Tom Jensen, "is a function of Democrats being a lot happier with their party's candidate than Republicans are with theirs. Clinton is winning 84% of the Democratic vote, compared to Trump's 77% of the Republican vote. Although neither candidate is well liked by voters in the state Trump's favorability, at 38% positive and 56% negative, comes in slightly worse than Clinton's at 38/55... Trump is only ahead because of a massive advantage among seniors in the state at 58/30. When you look at everyone in the electorate below the age of 65, Clinton leads Trump 41/36."