It must have pained CNN deeply to report this: “The Democrats’ advantage in the generic ballot dipped from 16 points in February to six points in March to just three points now.”
And the hits just keep on coming:
The results come from the same poll this week that found nearly six in 10 saying that things in the country are going well amid improving approval ratings for the President’s handling of major issues, including the economy, immigration and foreign trade. Trump’s overall approval rating, however, held steady at 41%.
But as we know from the 2016 election, Trump’s numbers are low due to a number of factors, chief among them being that a not insignificant number of voters are not willing to tell pollsters they support the president.
Meanwhile, the issues that favor Trump are all going in his direction:
Partisan shifts are driving other changes in issue priorities as well. Republicans are increasingly likely to consider immigration important (80% now vs. 70% in February) while Democrats are turning away from the issue (78% important now vs. 83% in February). The shift on taxes is more due to an increase in salience among Republicans (+13 in importance to 83%) than Democrats (+6 to 72% important), and the softening on sexual harassment stems more from GOP dropoff (from 48% important then to 38% now) than any fade in Democratic attention to the issue (80% rated it important in both polls).
Wouldn’t it be something if Republicans kept both the House and Senate in the midterms? If that happens, what will the Democrat-media industrial complex come up with this time to bury the truth that more and more Americans reject the Establishment? The usual smorgasbord of racism, sexism, and bigotry? Will it be Vladimir Putin again? Evangelicals going bananas (that’s the French-Douthat theorem)?
In any case, it wouldn’t be all that surprising that the man who went against history in 2016 would have something to do with yet another shock to our political system in 2018.