It Appears That Trump Is About To Deliver The Senate To The Democrats

Democratic primary voters-- for whatever reasons-- didn't support Bernie to the extent he needed them for the fight to fundamentally reorder American society. And yet the vast majority of Democrats tell pollsters that they want Medicare-for-All, Bernie's signature policy, one that Status Quo Joe has threatened to veto if it ever reaches his desk. Among all registered votes, between 69 and 70% of us want to provide Medicare to every American. Between 2018 and 2020 support among Democrats grew from 86% to 88%, stayed steady among independents (68%) and even in sinking by 6 points among Republicans still leaves 46% of Republicans in favor of Medicare-for-All. Men and women support Medicare-for-All equally and every region of the country backs it:

• West- 78%
• Midwest- 70%
• Northeast- 64%
• South- 64%

Because of the Trump regime's incompetence and dysfunction and because Trump himself is a malignant narcissist incapable of grappling with society's problems, the U.S. is the worst-hit of any country in the world by the pandemic. Last week we crossed over 50,000 deaths, Next week we will cross over a million confirmed cases. The dozen countries worst hit as of Saturday:

• U.S.- 926,530
• Spain- 223,759
• Italy- 192,994
• France- 159,828
• Germany- 155,054
• U.K.- 143,464
• Turkey- 104,912
• Iran- 89,328
• China- 82,816
• Russia- 74,588
• Brazil- 54,043
• Belgium- 45,325

And now the pandemic is spreading beyond big cities like New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, Atlanta, Newark, Detroit and Chicago and on into Trumpistan. Last week, the states with huge growth in confirmed cases relative to their populations were South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Mississippi, Utah, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kansas, Wisconsin and South Carolina.

A new Brookings study shows that "during the first three weeks of April, new counties showing a high prevalence of COVID-19 cases are more suburban, whiter, and voted more strongly for Donald Trump than counties the virus hit first. Note in the chart below how between March 29 and April 19 how counties that supported Trump went from about 34% of the infection rates to around 42%.

NY Times star reporters Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman wrote yesterday that Nervous Republicans See Trump Sinking, And Taking Senate With Him. A great part of their nervousness revolves around Trump's continued inability to confront the pandemic. They wrote that his "erratic handling of the coronavirus outbreak, the worsening economy and a cascade of ominous public and private polling have Republicans increasingly nervous that they are at risk of losing the presidency and the Senate if Mr. Trump does not put the nation on a radically improved course... [His] standing in states that he carried in 2016 looks increasingly wobbly: New surveys show him trailing significantly in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, and he is even narrowly behind in must-win Florida... Trump’s single best advantage as an incumbent-- his access to the bully pulpit-- has effectively become a platform for self-sabotage. His daily news briefings on the coronavirus outbreak are inflicting grave damage on his political standing, Republicans believe, and his recent remarks about combating the virus with sunlight and disinfectant were a breaking point for a number of senior party officials." Trump's late February standing in a dozen swing states according to the Morning Consult Trump Tracker in terms of what has happened to his net approval since taking office:

• Arizona- down 19
• Florida- down 19
• Georgia- down 16
• Iowa- down 14
• Michigan- down 18
• Minnesota- down 8
• New Hampshire- down 19
• North Carolina- down 13
• Ohio- down 15
• Pennsylvania- down 11
• Texas- down 13
• Wisconsin- down 17

In their report Martin and Haberman noted that "Glen Bolger, a longtime Republican pollster, said the landscape for his party had become far grimmer compared with the pre-virus plan to run almost singularly around the country’s prosperity. 'With the economy in free-fall, Republicans face a very challenging environment and it’s a total shift from where we were a few months ago,' Mr. Bolger said. 'Democrats are angry, and now we have the foundation of the campaign yanked out from underneath us.' ... Republicans were taken aback this past week by the results of a 17-state survey commissioned by the Republican National Committee. It found the president struggling in the Electoral College battlegrounds and likely to lose without signs of an economic rebound this fall, according to a party strategist outside the R.N.C. who is familiar with the poll’s results. The Trump campaign’s own surveys have also shown an erosion of support, according to four people familiar with the data, as the coronavirus remains the No. 1 issue worrying voters."

The Republican Senate woes come as anger toward Mr. Trump is rising from some of the party’s most influential figures on Capitol Hill.

After working closely with Senate Republicans at the start of the year, some of the party’s top congressional strategists say the handful of political advisers Mr. Trump retains have communicated little with them since the health crisis began.

In a campaign steered by Mr. Trump, whose rallies drove fund-raising and data harvesting, the center of gravity has of late shifted to the White House. His campaign headquarters will remain closed for another few weeks, and West Wing officials say the president’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, hasn’t been to the White House since last month, though he is in touch by phone.

Then there is the president’s conduct.

In just the last week, he has undercut the efforts of his campaign and his allies to attack Mr. Biden on China; suddenly proposed a halt on immigration; and said governors should not move too soon to reopen their economies-- a week after calling on protesters to “liberate” their states. And that was all before his digression into the potential healing powers of disinfectants.

Republican lawmakers have gone from watching his lengthy daily briefings with a tight-lipped grimace to looking upon them with horror.

...Privately, other party leaders are less restrained about the political damage they believe Mr. Trump is doing to himself and Republican candidates. One prominent G.O.P. senator said the nightly sessions were so painful he could not bear watching any longer.

Charles Booker is a progressive state Rep from Louisville who is running for the Kentucky Senate seat McConnell uses as his base of power. "Mitch McConnell," he told us yesterday, "knows that Donald Trump's lack of leadership is hurting Americans-- including his own constituents in Kentucky-- but in order to preserve his own power he has made himself into the President's lapdog, covering up his corruption, facilitating his failures, working to suppress the vote and hijack our democracy from American voters who he knows don't approve of the direction of the country."