Trump: The Republican Party's Biggest Albatross In History-- And Joni Ernst Vaults Towards The Top Of The Most Vulnerable List

Trump Snowball Effect by Nancy Ohanian

"Wednesday, the 1,000th day of Donald Trump’s presidency, went badly," wrote Jonathan Bernstein. "That’s no surprise; most of the first 999 days went badly too. I have no idea if he’s going to wind up getting ousted from office, either as a result of the impeachment House Democrats are readying or the 2020 election. But things are getting worse for Trump-- whether he realizes it or not." Bernstein was referring to Trump's moronic letter to Erdogan, "an embarrassment, in which Trump, soon after telling Erdogan on the phone that U.S. forces would move out of his way to enable Turkey’s invasion of Syria, tried to walk things back. Sort of. As Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman put it at the Monkey Cage, the president opted for 'threatening rhetoric reminiscent of a Mafia boss' to 'make loud threats that he may not be able to deliver on.' As soon as the letter was published, professional diplomats and historians said they had never seen something so amateurish from a U.S. president." That's Donald J. Trumpanzee!

But what really underlined Trump’s problem for me wasn’t that he wrote an incompetent letter to follow up on what seems to have been an incompetent phone call. Or that his Syria policy has resulted in chaos and death. Or that, on a crass political level, he’s managed to alienate his congressional allies just as he needs them most, with House Republicans voting overwhelmingly on Wednesday to condemn his decision.

No, what really got to me was that Trump distributed copies of this letter to congressional leaders when they showed up at the White House for a briefing. Think of it. Even if the letter had been perfectly normal, what Trump was handing them was an Oct. 9 request to Erdogan to halt his invasion-- a request that Erdogan has, as we’ve seen, totally ignored. Trump was bragging about what he considered to be a sign of his own brilliance without realizing that it was instead evidence of abject failure.

And that too, of course, is Donald J. Trumpanzee, star of his own reality show, U.S.A.! This and a million other things that are just horrifying. And Republicans in Congress see this too-- and wonder how badly its all going to blow back on them next year. Wednesday, only 60 Republicans voted against a Democratic resolution opposing his moves in Syria. 129 Republicans crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats, including Trump suck-ups like minority leader Kevin McCarthy, minority whip Steve Scalise and names always associated with Trump worship, from stooges like Devin Nunes, Liz Cheney, John Ratcliffe, Donald J Bacon and Patrick McHenry to lackeys like Clay Higgins, Michael McCaul, George Holding and sock puppet Lee Zeldin on the tip of Long Island. The 60 who stuck with Trump are generally in the safest, gerrymandered red districts where it would take a thousand foot high anti-Republican national tsunami to displace them-- garbage members like Gym Jordan (OH- R+14), Matt Gaetz (FL- R+22), Louie Gohmert (TX- R+25), Mark Meadows (NC- R+14), Mo Brooks (AL- R+18), Scott DesJarlais (TN- R+20), Greg Pence (IN- R+18), Andy Biggs (AZ- R+15) and Jason Smith (MO- R+24).

Meanwhile, Republican senators in swing states are losing their shit. As Morning Consult explained, vulnerable senators are seeing their chances for reelection slipping away every time Trump does something normal voters hate. And lately, that's several times a day. On Wednesday, we focused on why Susan Collins might as well not even run. Morning Consult looks at the similar travails of Thom Tillis (NC), Cory Gardner (CO), Joni Ernst (IA) and Matha McSally (AZ). "The most vulnerable Republican senators," wrote Eli Yokely, "are not improving their standing in their home states ahead of a tough 2020 election cycle, while the field of potential Democratic challengers took shape and began to flex its muscle. According to Morning Consult’s latest quarterly Senator Approval Rankings based on nearly 534,000 responses from registered voters collected July 1 through Sept. 30, Republicans representing Colorado, Arizona, North Carolina, Maine and Iowa all saw their net approval-- the share of voters who approve of a senator’s job performance minus the share who disapprove-- decline between the second and third quarters of 2019."

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who has already faced a cascade of negative advertising, saw a drop of 9 percentage points-- the biggest decline in net approval for any senator. The slide places her underwater with Iowa voters (39 percent approve and 43 percent disapprove) for the first time and among the 10 most unpopular senators in the country.

Iowa voters of all partisan leanings soured on the first-term senator, but GOP voters were most likely to take a dimmer view of her job performance. Her net approval dropped by 13 points among Republicans, compared with respective 9- and 7-point drops among Democrats and independents.

Ernst is not the only Republican up for re-election next year with a home-state approval below 40 percent: Among the vulnerable incumbents, Martha McSally of Arizona, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Thom Tillis of North Carolina are all below that threshold following a quarter where each saw little movement.

...As split-ticket voting continues to decline, the latest rankings show Trump continues to be a drag on Republican incumbents. In Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina and Texas, Trump’s net approval with registered voters is worse than that of the incumbent Republican, by double digits in several cases.

Among the dozen senators with the smallest approval numbers (from voters in their own states) are 5 Republicans who have to face the voters in 2020-- with Trump further dragging them down. (In way of comparison, Bernie, once again the most popular senator in America, has a 65% approval and John Barrasso, the most popular Republican, has a 59% approval.)

• Thom Tillis (NC)- 33%
• Cory Gardner (CO)- 36%
• Moscow Mitch (KY)- 37%
• Martha McSally (AZ)- 39%
• Joni Ernst (IA)- 39%