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 OhanianA 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."
