Daddy, What Does "Reverse Coattails" Mean?

A new YouGov poll for CBS News shows that nearly half of registered voters (48%) believe Trump's policies are making the economy worse. Worse for Republicans is that most voters (57%) say Trump is doing a very bad (43%) or somewhat bad (14%) job on handling the pandemic. 51% of registered voters with school-age children say they don't think Trump cares about the risks coronavirus poses to the health of their children. depending on the specific questions between 79 nd 83% of voters want to see massive new financial aid provided to victims of the COVID-Recession, something Republicans in Congress are blocking. Overall, Trump trails Biden among voters nationally by 10 points.

Liam O'Mara is an extraordinary progressive Democrat taking on a corrupt knee-jerk Trumpist, Ken Calvert, in a red-leaning suburban congressional district southeast of Los Angeles. A history professor, O'Mara told me yesterday that "We are in an economic depression that was entirely avoidable. We're here because this president cared only for how he looked, not what happened to the country, and is running the most incompetent administration in our history. And with 157,000 Americans dead of a preventable outbreak, 33% of GDP lost to a shut-down that never needed to happen, record-breaking levels of corporate welfare & corruption, Crooked Ken Calvert has the audacity to brag to his constituents that he's voted with Trump 98% of the time. That kind of party-before-country bullshit needs to end. Calvert has lately been trashing the First Amendment and doubling-down on militarized policing, fear-mongering about his fellow Americans, and trying to paint me as a violent anarchist. Calvert is unpatriotic, hyper-partisan, racist, and unfit for public office... sadly, much like this president."

Although there's plenty of time between now and the election for that 10 point gap to widen significantly-- which is likely-- the last time a Democrat won by over 10 points was in 1964 when Barry Goldwater's reverse coattails dragged down a net of 36 Republicans in the House (including Wyoming Republican Congressman William Henry Harrison III, whose grandfather and great-great-grandfather had both been presidents). Meanwhile, 3 Republican senators-- Jim Beall (MD), Edwin Mechem (NM), and Kenneth Keating (NY)-- lost their seats as well.

Over the weekend CNN published a piece by John Harwood, Trump's coattails no boon for GOP Senate candidates with a photo of a forlorn, wistful-looking Susan Collins. Though Harwood noted that so far "Republican Senate candidates have shown little capacity to separate their fates from Trump," Collins has tried-- not always successfully-- harder than most to do just that. After three years of whining and prevaricating followed by high profile votes enabling all the worst of Trumpism, Mainers aren't buying it. The most recent public poll available for Maine was done by Colby College. It shows Trump losing by 12 points, with just 38%-- much worse than he did in 2016 when Hillary beat him statewide by a scant 3 points-- 357,735 (47.83%) to 335,593 (44.87%).

When asked who they would vote for if the election were held today, Susan Collins or Democrat Sara Gideon, Gideon leads 44-39%. Collins is holding onto 75% of Republican voters and Gideon, a garden variety moderate Dem who has yet to make any successful overtures to Bernie supporters, is holding onto 79% of Democratic voters. But the real key to Gideon's lead is the way she is besting Collins with the all-important independent vote-- 38-35%. If that holds, Collins is toast.

In 2016, Trump managed to win one of Maine's 4 electoral votes by winning in the second CD. This poll found that Trump is trailing Biden in the second CD by 3 points-- 42 to 45%-- even while Collins is eking out a useless win in that more conservative part of the state, leading Gideon 44-40%.

Harwood lumped Collins in with Martha McSally (R-AZ), Cory Gardner (R-CO) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) as incumbents in bug trouble because of an inability to successfully separate themselves from Trumpism.

"If (the election) is today, I don't see how Republicans can hold," agrees GOP strategist Liam Donovan. Up and down the ballot, he explains: "The only question is, 'Do you like Trump?'"

A generation ago, when the Democratic and Republican parties embraced considerable ideological and geographic diversity, such simple electoral equations didn't apply. The share of voters backing candidates of different parties for president and Senate has shrunk from around 20% in the 1970s to around 6% today, notes political scientist Gary Jacobson.

When Obama sought reelection, such "ticket-splitting" allowed Democrats to win Senate seats in Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia-- all red states that Romney carried easily. Democrats candidates with comparatively conservative profiles managed to significantly outpoll Obama.

Neither party pulled that off in 2016 when Trump and Hillary Clinton led the Republican and Democratic tickets. The convergence of president and Senate voting was complete; Republican Senate candidates won only in Trump-carried states, Democratic Senate candidates only in Clinton-carried states.

This year, as Trump trails nationally and in critical battlegrounds alike, that bodes ill for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's field of candidates. Three months before Election Day, some endangered GOP Senate candidates are not only failing to outpace the president but actually under-performing him.

In Michigan, which Trump won narrowly four years ago, the polling average on realclearpolitics.com shows him trailing by eight percentage points now. GOP Senate challenger John James trails Democratic incumbent Gary Peters by even more.

The same is true of embattled Republican incumbents, who in past campaigns might have leaned on their own distinct home-state political identities.

In Arizona, GOP Sen. Martha McSally trails Democratic challenger Mark Kelly by twice the three-percentage deficit Trump faces. In North Carolina, GOP Sen. Thom Tillis faces the same predicament against Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham.

Political analysts cite multiple factors. The bleak national environment for the GOP has powered strong fundfraising by Democratic candidates, helping them heap fresh attacks on Republicans already weighed down by Trump's unpopularity. Among Democrats and some independents, antipathy toward Trump transfers directly onto Republican Congressional candidates they believe would assist him in office.

In 2012, opponents "didn't despise Barack Obama with the level of intensity that people despite Donald Trump," says Amy Walter, an analyst at the Cook Report. "He has forced you to pick a side. There's no gray area."

That black-or-white dynamic erodes intra-party support for Republicans seeking to protect themselves by establishing any distance at all from Trump. In North Carolina, after briefly bucking Trump on funding for the US-Mexico "border wall" last year, Tillis has faced catcalls from Trump allies without gaining support among Trump's adversaries.

Not even the Northeastern Republican who touts her independence the loudest has escaped the undertow. In recent public polling, veteran GOP Sen. Susan Collins just about matched Trump's approval rating at around 40%.

To shift attention from the President to her Democratic challenger Sara Gideon, Collins has proposed no fewer than 16 debates between them before Election Day. Other Republicans have attempted similar gambits.

The gigantic shadow Trump casts over 2020, and shrinking supply on media resources available for covering state and local politics, make that a difficult strategy to pull off. What Republican candidates need most is for partisan solidarity to reverse some of the erosion Trump has suffered among Republican-leaning constituencies, such as older and non-college whites, that lifted him in 2016.

"The only hope they have is that, as we get close to the election, Trump is able to win back some of those disaffected Republicans," Walter said.

Pramila and AOC by Nancy Ohanian

A Trump debacle isn't just going to mean Republican losses in the Senate and the House. It's likely that the anti-Trump, anti-Republican tsunami is going to sweep away many Republicans in state legislatures across the country. We asked a few Democratic challengers running for state legislatures around the country. Anselm Weber is the progressive Democrat running for an open state House seat to represent part of Lee County in southwest Florida. He told me that he thinks Gov. Ron DeSantis' and the other Republicans' crashing poll numbers across the state "provide enormous opportunity for everyday Floridians to hear a new perspective. My opponents, Jason Maughan and Adam Botana, are running on the 'Trump agenda' which is short for 'let's not do anything for working people and use the working class as sacrificial lambs to get the economy up and going again.' It is truly pathetic, their 'leadership' during this time, and Floridians need to have representatives who have their back during this crisis. We need to cancel rent and home payments in the short term, and provide universal healthcare, affordable housing, unions and livable wages for the years to come for the working class."

I asked Jacob Malinowski, who's running for a Wisconsin Assembly seat held by conservative Republican Ken Skowronski, the same question about how the "Trump factor" is impacting his own race. He told me that Trump "has been a disaster for Wisconsin families, yet my opponent is a loud and proud Trump supporter. We're hopeful folks around here recognize that this style of politics is tearing our country apart and vote for new leadership up and down the ballot. We anticipate that our style of campaigning-- focusing on people-first, bottom-up solutions-- resonates with voters who are sick of nothing getting done, and that hard work will pay off."

Bob Lynch, who's running for a swingy Miami-Dade state House seat that the state party gave up on because the GOP incumbent, Daniel Pérez, was seen as too daunting. Lynch isn't daunted at all-- not by Pérez, not by the Republican Party and not by the Democratic Party. "This is an incredibly important point, especially with the upcoming census," he told me. "The demographic change in this country is only going one way and it does not bode well for a party of old bigoted white men. The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the fact that the Republican Party has absolutely no interest in providing even basic level services to the citizens of this country and the state of Florida in particular. All of the Republicans are complicit in this total criminal failure of government, especially Daniel Pérez. As someone who has been tabbed to be the speaker in 2024, he should have at least some modicum of power to prevent people in Miami-Dade County from dying needless and preventable deaths. Instead he is silent. We are getting to the point in the election where the issues are going to be very simple. Do you think that the government should be actively working to keep people alive and on unemployment or do you think the government should be looting the treasury for their corporate donors? As this situation continues to play out in red states featuring useless Republican governments, this should turn into an anti-Republican tsunami. That is why it is so important to have Democratic candidates running for every single seat in every single state. You can’t win if you don’t play. This could be a historic shift in party politics on the national level but it has to start locally."

Joshua Hicks, a progressive and a Berniecrat who is competing with Trump-Republican incumbent Cord Byrd in a northeast Florida district agrees that the 'Trump-factor' is powerful and motivating "across the country and here in Florida, in a red district. Just today, I spoke with Republicans who are ready for new leaders in Tallahassee and will be supporting me this November. They are fed up with the embarrassing daily drama Donald Trump causes, and are ready to vote out any leader associated with him. Here in Northeast Florida, people are crying for leaders who will address the bread-and-butter issues that they are facing on a daily basis. And because of this, and Trump's anti-coattails, Republicans and NPAs are willing to give Democrats a look and a vote this November. I believe that you'll see upsets across the country in districts thought safe by Republican candidates 'taking it easy' on the campaign trail."

An Anti-Trump Wave Is Going To Change Both Houses Of Congress In November

You've probably been reading about how a Mitch McConnell to cling onto power in the Senate has been telling his colleagues to run as fast and as far as they can from Trump and his collapsing reelection campaign to save their seats. "While this may give some senators the flexibility to draw a distinction between themselves and the President," reported CNN, "it also forces them to walk a tightrope. Trump remains enormously popular with the Republican base, and any attempts to undercut him risks alienating those voters. 'These vulnerable senators can't afford to explicitly repudiate Trump,' said one senior Republican on Capitol Hill. 'They just need to show they are independent on issues important in their states.' Still, Trump continues to give GOP senators ways to make their break with him easier. The President's sustained assault on mail-in voting lacks GOP allies. And his suggestion on Thursday morning to delay the election drew open rebukes from many top Republicans, including multiple senators up for reelection, as well as McConnell." Incumbent Republican senators who are losing support because of their Trump enablement to the point of endangering their reelections include Susan Collins (ME), Cory Gardner (CO), Martha McSally (AZ), Thom Tillis (NC), Steve Daines (MT), Joni Ernst (IA), David Perdue (GA), Dan Sullivan AK) and even Lindsey Graham (SC) and Miss McConnell (KY-Jelly) himself.

Graydon Carter: "Mitch McConnell and his Republican cohort are, most surely, to the Trump regime what Ghislaine Maxwell was to Jeffrey Epstein. They are the enablers, participants, and cheerleaders of a president who, through avarice, incompetence, and blithe ignorance of science and looming dangers, may wind up doing more damage to more Americans than any other living human being."

Can congressional Republicans hide from this?

In a NY Times piece yesterday, Alienated by Trump, Suburban Voters Sour on G.O.P. in Battle for the House, Emily Cochrane and Catie Edmondson, described how voters in the St Louis suburbs are turning away from Republican Ann Wagner, a mainstream conservative-- not a neo-fascist-- who has been dragged into an uncomfortable position of enabling Trump's highly unpopular excesses. "Suburban districts like these," wrote Cochrane and Edmonson, "have long been critical bases of Republican support, packed with affluent white voters who reliably chose Republicans to represent them in Congress. Democrats seized control of the House in 2018 by making inroads in communities like these, and Republicans have tied their hopes of reclaiming power to preserving their remaining footholds there. But as Mr. Trump continues to stumble in his response to the pandemic and seeks to stir up racist fears with pledges to preserve the 'Suburban Lifestyle Dream,' such districts are slipping further from the party’s grasp, and threatening to drag down congressional Republicans in November’s elections."

Trump has continued to alienate voters, including independents and even conservatives and "particularly women and better-educated Americans-- who are turned off by his partisan appeals and disappointed in his leadership. From the suburbs of St. Louis to Omaha to Houston, they expressed deep concern about Mr. Trump’s approach to twin national crises, lamenting his confident declarations that the coronavirus was under control and his move to stoke racial divides after nationwide protests over police brutality against Black Americans. One result is that House Republicans, who began the election cycle hoping to win an uphill battle to recapture their majority-- or at the very least, claw back some of the competitive districts they lost to Democrats in 2018-- are instead scrambling to shore up seats that once would have required little effort to hold."

They care now. Poster by Chip Proser

They even used the T-word-- "tsunami"-- to describe what's headed towards the Republicans in November, placing "once safe Republican incumbents on an 'anti-Trump wave watch list.'"

In the suburbs of Douglas County in Nebraska, Derek Oden, 23, the executive director of the local Republican Party, said he was working feverishly to expand his party’s outreach, acknowledging that the national rhetoric fueled in part by Mr. Trump’s inflammatory language “definitely convolutes things.” Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, has recently begun to distance himself from the president, openly breaking with him by leading the charge to remove the names of Confederate figures from military bases, a move that Mr. Trump has condemned.

“I think they’re leaning away from what used to be Republican standards-- instead of leading the culture, they’re letting the culture lead them,” Nora Haury, 87, said of Republicans in an interview outside her home in Omaha. “I feel a bit discouraged,” she added, though she said her concerns about how much the Democrats were influenced by their party’s left flank would keep her voting red come November.

Mr. Bacon will again face Kara Eastman, a progressive activist and nonprofit organizer, after defeating her by two points in 2018. Armed with fliers and an arsenal of pork-related puns, the congressman spent one recent afternoon knocking on doors in blistering heat, trying to persuade moderate and independent voters that he deserved their votes.

Cheerfully reminding those who answered the door that their votes could make a difference, he made little unsolicited mention of the president, responding to entreaties to make the pandemic go away with reassurances about the promising, yet early, success of a vaccine trial and pointing to the $2.2 trillion stimulus law that Congress approved in March.

“I can just control my message and control my work ethic,” Mr. Bacon said, adding that he believed Ms. Eastman’s support for “Medicare for all” and other progressive proposals would repel independent voters. “Trump will be a factor in this discussion, and I don’t know where it will be in four months, so I can’t worry about that.”

...In Texas, where Democrats are targeting five seats that once were Republican strongholds explicitly gerrymandered to capture large sections of the suburbs, some steadfast conservative voters are now preparing to cast their first votes for Democratic congressional candidates, infuriated by the administration’s handling of the pandemic.

...In Houston’s northern suburbs, Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee who won re-election in 2018 by five points, is facing a rematch from Mike Siegel, a progressive civil rights lawyer. Republican strategists say that Mr. McCaul’s campaign this cycle is far stronger, but privately acknowledge Mr. McCaul could fall if an exceptionally strong Democratic wave sweeps across the country.

They are worried about voters like Wade Miller, 51, in Cypress. Mr. Miller, in an interview, described himself as a longtime Republican, but said he was reluctant to support Republicans in the coming election, citing their response to the pandemic. He and his wife had stopped watching national television news because listening to the president’s talk “made us angry for a little bit there,” he said.

“I have always been a mostly straight-ticket voter-- I don’t think I will be this coming election,” Mr. Miller said. “We’re talking about human lives here, and if people aren’t willing to do what it takes to save lives, what else aren’t they willing to do? I will definitely be changing my vote come November.”

The other big Texas campaign is the effort to replace crooked Trump enabler Roger Williams with progressive Julie Oliver in a district that snakes down from Tarrant County into Austin and the Texas Hill Country. And not only did a recent Washington Post poll show that Julie Oliver is in a statistical dead heat with Williams, her campaign reported its largest fundraising month in July, nearly outraising all of the second quarter contributions in one month... and all donations were from individuals."

Julie's campaign manager, Julia Doubleday, noted that "People across this district are suffering, and they are more aware than ever that they have a representative in Congress who is looking out solely for himself. After taking $1-2 million in government funds for his own car dealership while small businesses across the district were forced to close, he loudly declared that unemployed folks should receive 'zero' in pandemic relief. And while he has ignored his constituents and put Donald Trump first, he found plenty of time in Washington to verbally harass Representative Ocasio-Cortez, a true champion for working people."

Now imagine if the Democrats about the be swept into office were progressives like Kara Eastman, Mike Siegel and Julie Oliver, who actually have something to offer, instead of more Blue Dog and New Dem careerists who will do no good for anyone and, in a repeat of 2010, be all swept out of office in 2022 for their utter uselessness. The Democratic Party Establishment is, clearly incapable of learning from its serial, always repeated mistakes. Yes, a Democratic White House, a Democratic Senate and a stronger Democratic House are all looming-- so what a horrific tragedy that it will be barely more interested in structural reform than the garbage we're dumping now.

Who Is The Biggest Drag On Republican Candidates In Florida-- Trump Or DeSantis?

Lambchop by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday's Quinnipiac poll of Florida voters, released just as the U.S. crossed the 4.1 million case load, must have left White House heads exploding. Trump's overall job approval is way underwater-- 40% approve and 58% disapprove. (When it comes to his handling if the pandemic, it's even worse-- just 37% approve.) And Trump is dragging down the Florida GOP with him. They're all underwater. DeSantis' job approval is just 38%, while 57% disapprove. Rick Scott's approval is down to 41%, with 44% disapproving, similar to Marco Rubio's 40% approval/44% disapproval. Lucky for them, none of them is up for reelection in November. Democrats running against entrenched GOP incumbents in the state legislature are seeing the opportunity. I asked some of the progressive candidates in Republican-held districts in different parts of Florida.

Jared West, a candidate for state House in the northeast Polk County district held by knee-jerk Republican Sam Killebrew. "We’re fired up in district 41,' Jared told me this morning. "My opponent spent over 80 days ignoring coronavirus, the unemployment crisis, and what’s happening here that is hurting everyone so much. People see right through it. We’re tired of our community need falling on deaf ears. We’re tired of people not working for us, but for special interests instead. And I’m going to flip this district."

Katherine Norman is running for state Senate in the 23rd district, mostly Sarasota County with a slice of Charlotte. Her opponent is the notorious Joe Gruters, a wily extremist right-winger, former co-chair of the 2016 Trump campaign in Florida and now chairman of the Florida Republican Party. Norman is looking forward to the contest. "When elected officials are more interested in their own personal gain than the interest of their constituents it will always come to light eventually. This pandemic has made this clear. Gruters, DeSantis, and other Florida GOP Trumpists have brought the utterly misguided loyalty to the current administration at the expense of Florida's citizens to light. This pandemic and our government's response will be remembered Nov. 3rd. The lives we have lost will never be forgotten and we are working harder than ever for accountable leadership in their names."

Florida state House candidate Joshua Hicks, a progressive, not a garden variety Democrat, told me that people he talks with in his Republican-leaning district in northeast Florida "are exhausted by the chaos and are tired of politicians who put blind party loyalty above what’s in the community’s best interest. Independents and moderate Republicans, especially women, are abandoning President Trump in droves and those are the voters that my campaign is focused on. They care about stopping coronavirus spreading, expanding healthcare access, addressing climate change, and stopping gun violence. Instead of working on those kitchen table issues, my opponent, State Rep. Cord Byrd, has been doing everything he can to set himself up to win future Republican primaries for higher office, while placating Trump’s ego. During the height of the recent peaceful civil rights protests against systemic racism and police brutality, my opponent was holding a boat parade for Donald Trump, with supporters flying confederate and QAnon flags. To this day, he has not made a statement on George Floyd or ending systemic racism."

Joshua said that Byrd has made matters worse by being conspicuously absent all during the pandemic. "In a selfish and irresponsible move," he told me yesterday, Byrd "attended a fundraiser where a lobbyist attendee tested positive for COVID-19 and where no one was wearing masks. Then he attended an RNC Host Committee event with Vice President Pence, again not wearing a mask or social distancing. He still hasn’t made a statement about his testing or quarantine status, even though other GOP politicians from the same events have done so. In short, my opponent would rather please Donald Trump than do what’s best for his constituents. The poll numbers by Quinnipiac shouldn't be surprising-- we have a real opportunity to flip this red seat if my campaign has the resources to take advantage of collapsing approval of Donald Trump and the Republican party at large. People are fed up and this November, they'll make it known at the ballot box if we out work and out organize every politician who puts Trump before people."

Near the southern tip of the state, Bob Lynch is running to replace another right-wing power-monger, Daniel Perez, who's in line to become House Speaker in 2024-- if Perez manages to beat Lynch and if the Republican majority doesn't get swept away in the anti-Trump tsunami. Lynch is counting on beating Perez and watching the Republicans' majority dissipate. "This is not a year where we should be listening to the traditional handicapping of state legislative races," he told me today. "The catastrophic incompetence of the Trump and DeSantis’ administration has brought our state to the brink of ruin. We’ve had more Floridians die of COVID-19 than every single hurricane in the state’s history combined. Where the hell is the state House? Where is Danny Perez? Why is the state legislature not doing anything to hold these people accountable and save lives and jobs? Because all of the Republicans are complicit, especially the ones in future leadership roles. Anyone who is only looking at so called 'winnable' races based on outdated metrics is missing the big picture and an opportunity for real change in the state of Florida. And it is precisely races like mine that donors should be focusing on because the return on investment is much higher and the capital required is far lower. I will continue to hang Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis around my opponent's neck like a millstone because he is responsible for enabling their incompetence and corruption. People relying on PVI or past breakdowns are living in a different reality. The situation is really bad here and we are entirely controlled by Republicans at the state level. No excuses."

Anselm Weber is running for the Florida House as well, across the state from where Lynch is running, in Lee County, where the pandemic has been picking up virulence. Today Florida reported 12,444 new cases statewide and another 278 in Lee County, bringing the county total to 14,046-- a ghastly 13,794 still active. Weber told me that he thinks DeSantis' and the other Republicans' crashing poll numbers across the state "provide enormous opportunity for everyday Floridians to hear a new perspective. My opponents, Jason Maughan and Adam Botana, are running on the 'Trump agenda' which is short for 'let's not do anything for working people and use the working class as sacrificial lambs to get the economy up and going again.' It is truly pathetic, their 'leadership' during this time, and Floridians need to have representatives who have their back during this crisis. We need to cancel rent and home payments in the short term, and provide universal healthcare, affordable housing, unions and livable wages for the years to come for the working class."

Florida's new coronavirus cases again topped 12,000 yesterday-- bringing the total beyond 400,000 more than any country in Western Europe, including more than any of the countries with much bigger populations than Florida. Florida's population is 21.5 million.

• Germany (pop- 83.8 million)- 205,142 confirmed cases (672 yesterday)
• U.K. (pop- 67.9 million)- 297,146 confirmed cases (769 yesterday)
• France (pop- 65.3 million)- 179,398 confirmed cases (1,062 yesterday)
• Italy (pop- 60.5 million)- 245,338 confirmed cases (306 yesterday)
• Spain (pop- 46.7 million)- 317,246 confirmed cases (2,615 yesterday)

The disparities are staggering. It doesn't take much deep thinking to see that whoever is making the decisions in Florida is getting it really, really wrong.

At Bloomberg News yesterday, Jonathan Bernstein offered some ideas about what the Republicans will be up to after they lose both the White House and Senate (and more House seats). Trump gave a little preview in the tweet (above) after he tried blaming Democrats for GOP disarray and dysfunction. Cooperation will not be on the menu. "After a round of recriminations," he wrote, "the next two years are reasonably predictable: Republicans would react to unified Democratic government exactly the way they did in 1993 and 2009-- and arguably in 1977 and 1961 as well. They’d mount as much obstruction as they could in Congress, while charging the incoming administration with malfeasance. Outside of Washington, expect more Tea Party-type rallies, blaming Democrats for the high levels of unemployment they inherited and claiming their plans are socialist overreach. Expect partisans to rile up resentment the way they did in those years as well… There might be some talk about the long-term demographic challenges the party faces, but most will soon conclude that their main mistake was not being conservative enough. There will be no serious discussions within the party of the real problem: They can’t govern. The reason this is easy to predict is because, as the party sees it, the Bob Dole Republicans in 1993-1994 and the Mitch McConnell Republicans in 2009-2010 were totally successful. Compromise is a trap, in this view; the way to recover is to oppose the Democrats flat-out."

Sad that Biden is unlikely to accomplish anything to make anyone happy-- other than just fumigating the White House and the Executive Branch. And Schumer's Senate will be run by a Democratic majority but a very, very conservative one. The Democratic establishment has set the table for another 2010-like electoral donnybrook in 2022.

Republican Concern About Another Ass-Whooping By The Voters Grows

Yesterday, Gallup released a new poll that shows Trump's job approval cratering, down to 39% for the week ending June 4. "His current level of approval," they wrote, "would make another term as president unlikely, given the historical relationship between job approval ratings and incumbent reelection. With five months to go before Election Day, there is still time for those ratings to improve and get back near the 50% level associated with incumbent reelection in the past, but also time for them to get worse and give the president even longer odds of winning a second term."

Just as Gallup was releasing their bad news for Trump, Politico released the latest in-depth Morning Consult survey, which also looks disastrous for an incumbent president. Among registered voters, 39% approve of Trump, while 58% disapprove (47% of them strongly.) Furthermore no one likes the members of two of Trump's key demographics. Only 4% have a favorable opinion of neo-Nazis (81% have an unfavorable view) and just 5% like the most important component of the Trump coalition-- white supremicists-- while 84% have an unfavorable opinion. And compared to other high-profile politicians, Trump looks like a loser. These are the net approval ratings

• Mitch McConnell- minus 25%
• Señor Trumpanzee- minus 18%
• Republicans in Congress- minus 18%
• Nancy Pelosi- 36% (52%) minus 16%
• Kevin McCarthy- minus 15%
• Chuck Schumer- 26% (40%) minus 14%
• Mike Pence- 40% (46%) minus 6%
• Democrats in Congress- minus 6%
• Elizabeth Warren- minus 1
• Joe Biden- 46-46% (neutral)

This has hurt the notoriously thin-skinned and ratings obsessed Señor T's feelings. So he's suing CNN. He had an attorney for his campaign serve them with a cease and desist order, demanding they retract (and apologize for) a poll with results very much like the two from Gallup and Morning Consult. The CNN poll shows Trump with a 38% approval rating and shows Biden beating him 55-41%. CNN laughed at his cease and desist letter, delighted with the publicity.

Republicans in Congress-- especially those up for reelection-- don't find it laughable. Two Washington Post stories in recent days says it all: What Keeps Senate Republicans From Ditching Trump? and Republicans Fear Trump's Weakened Standing Jeopardizes The Party In November. In the latter piece, Bob Costa and Phil Rucker wrote that "there is no sign yet of a mass exodus from the runaway Trump train. If anything, most elected Republicans see themselves as prisoners onboard, calculating that jumping off would lead to almost certain defeat. Conversations at the highest ranks of the party have reached what one veteran operative called the 'acceptance phase of grieving,' where 'there is an understanding that he’s president until at least November, and there is not much we can do about it.' … Strategists over the past week have suggested myriad ways embattled incumbents could tiptoe around Trump’s rolling controversies, as opposed to embracing them."

House districts tend to be more polarized than most entire states are and House incumbents are generally thereby rendered safer. But in another huge anti-red wave year, Republicans who are usually unconcerned about what voters think, are nervous now. I asked Mike Siegel, who nearly beat McCaul in 2018 and is back to finish the job, why McCaul should be worried. "When Joe Biden is polling close to even in Texas," he said, "that signals doom down the GOP ballot. For years office holders like McCaul relied on the 'straight ticket'-- an option in Texas where voters could press one button to select one party in every partisan race. In this way, the gubernatorial and presidential candidates meant everything, and if you were luckily enough to win the nomination in the right district with a decent candidate at the top of the ticket, you rode in without much effort. Now, in 2020, we no longer have straight ticket voting (the GOP legislature repealed it, in a move they may regret), and Republicans like McCaul are faced with the twin challenges of building name ID while avoiding the albatross of Trump. It’s an impossible quest in TX-10. McCaul is already sounding the alarm, telling his donors this is a 'toss up' race. The cavalry is not coming-- he hasn’t kissed up sufficiently to the White House, so Trump won’t help, but he’s simultaneously too right wing and Trump-compromised (family separation, impeachment, COVID-19) to earn moderate support. It’s a perfect storm and we are ready to take advantage."

Audrey Denney had similar thoughts about her race in rural northeast California, where Oregon, Nevada and California all meet up. She told me that Trump enabler Doug LaMalfa "is actually running a campaign for the first time in his 18 years of holding elected office. He’s feeling the pressure and we’re feeling good!"

After Tuesday confirmed that Cathy Kunkel is the Democratic nominee in West Virginia's least red congressional district she told me that "With Trump's approval down in West Virginia, Alex Mooney may be forced to actually run on his record, instead of relying on the down-ballot effect high Republican turnout for Trump. And his record is not a good one: voting to take away healthcare from tens of thousands of West Virginians in his district by supporting repeal of the Affordable Care Act, voting in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy, and voting against the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act.