Duluth, Minnesota is a blue city surrounded by 4 blue counties-- Saint Louis, of which it is the county seat, Carlton to the south, and Lake and Cook to the north and east. All 4 counties went for Hillary in 2016, Saint Louis 51.9% to 40.1%. (The 4 counties were Bernie country in primaries. Not only did Bernie have double the number of votes that Hillary had, he beat Cruz, Trump and Rubio combined.) Trump's moron daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, told an audience in Duluth that she feels the pain of the workers her family has laid off. "We get that this is unfair to you, but this is so much bigger than any one person. It is a little bit of pain, but it’s going to be for the future of our country and their children and their grandchildren and generations after that will thank them for their sacrifice right now... I know it’s hard, I know they have bills to pay, they have mortgages, they have rents that are due, but the president is trying every single day to come up with a good solution here and the reality is it’s been something that has gone on for too long and gone unaddressed,” she said. “I would just tell them, please stay strong, we appreciate everything that you’re sacrificing, we’re behind you and we are going to do everything that we can, I know the president is doing everything he can to resolve this quickly."Kevin Hassett, Trump’s top economic adviser, had some more salt to rub on their wounds, saying that federal employees were better off because of the shutdown since they did not have to use their personal vacation days over the Christmas holidays. This kind of tone-deafness has driven Trump's approval numbers further down the toilet.According to a new CBS News poll, Trump's overall approval rating has dipped three points from November to a dismal 36% today. [Experts say if he goes below 33% Republicans will begin pealing away from him in the kind of numbers needed for a bipartisan push towards impeachment-- and... gettin' there: only 34% approval according to the new AP-NORC poll released this afternoon.] 59% of Americans now disapprove of the job he is doing-- a high for his illegitimate "presidency." He's even managed to do something no one has has ever managed: drive up Nancy Pelosi's favorable ratings! American's prefer her to Trump. The Trump vanity-wall and the Trump-McConnell government shutdown are killing Trump and killing the GOP.
Seven in 10 Americans don't think the issue of a border wall is worth a government shutdown, which they say is now having a negative impact on the country. But partisans don't want their own side to budge: 65 percent of Republicans say President Trump should refuse a budget unless it includes wall funding, and 69 percent of Democrats think congressional Democrats should keep refusing to fund it.Among Americans overall, and including independents, more want to see Mr. Trump give up wall funding than prefer the congressional Democrats agree to wall funding. Comparably more Americans feel House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is handling negotiations better than the president is so far....Overall, more Americans say congressional Democrats care about the needs and problems of people like them than say that about President Trump. Most younger Americans, women and racial minorities say Democrats in Congress care about their needs and problems....In evaluating the overall job performance of leaders in Congress, Pelosi gets higher approval ratings than GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, although more Americans are unable to offer an opinion of McConnell.Pelosi gets higher marks from the rank and file in her party, compared to the ratings McConnell gets from his party. About 7 in 10 Democrats approve of the job Pelosi is doing, while just 43% of Republicans approve of McConnell.
The PPP survey that was released Tuesday evening had even worse news for a Republican Party that has attached itself to Trump for better or worse-- and, let's face it, it's been all worse, as the 42 Republicans who lost red districts in November can tell you. PPP's analysis of the numbers at the halfway point in his presidency shows him to be the underdog for 2020. "Trump gets just 41 or 42% in head to head match ups against 7 likely Democratic candidates for President. He trails Joe Biden 53-41, Bernie Sanders 51-41, Kamala Harris 48-41, Beto O’Rourke 47-41, Elizabeth Warren 48-42, and Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand each 47-42. Trump’s low 40s support for reelection essentially tracks with his approval numbers. Only 40% of voters approve of the job he’s doing to 57% who disapprove.PPP sees anyone who can win the Democratic nomination beating Trump at this point-- and his vanity wall and his government shutdown are making it worse for him and for his enablers in Congress. There's a long way to go until 2020, but only an idiot would say Trump can turn things around. All the evidence shows that he will make things worse for himself and for the candidates running on his ticket. The longer we have until election day, the worse he will do to alienate independent voters and even some Republicans.
The shutdown situation is not doing anything to help Trump’s cause. Only 35% of voters agree with Trump that the government should be kept closed until he gets funding for the wall to 60% who disagree. 57% think Congress should vote today to reopen the government without funding the wall, to 38% who are opposed. 55% of voters pin the blame for the shutdown on Trump and the Republicans in Congress to 43% who blame the Democrats in Congress. And on a related note about who’s coming out ahead in the shutdown, voters say they’d prefer to have either Chuck Schumer (46-41) or Nancy Pelosi (47-44) over Trump as President.As the Russia investigation heats up, 45% of voters think Trump has committed crimes since he began running for President to 41% who don’t think he has. And if the Mueller investigation does find that Trump committed a crime 61% think he should be indicted and prosecuted in the courts, to just 30% who disagree. Already there is 46% support for impeachment, to 44% of voters who are opposed.“We are still waiting on the findings of the Mueller investigation,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “But voters are expecting him to find that Trump has committed crimes, and they want him to be prosecuted for them.”Trump has tried over the course of his Presidency to use the media as a foil, much as he did with Hillary Clinton during his campaign. It’s not particularly working though- voters trust CBS more than him 52/38, trust NBC and the Washington Post more 51/38, trust ABC and the New York Times more 51/39, and trust CNN more 49/39.
And that's not the end of it. Politico hired Morning Consult to do one for them and the headline tells the whole story: Shutdown, Russia drive Trump to all-time high disapproval. Their polling shows that Trump's disapproval rating is "at an all-time high" amid his historically long government shutdown and concerns about his relationship with Putin! They found that 57% disapprove of his job performance and 54% of voters blame Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill for the shutdown, while just 35%, basically the Trump base, blame congressional Democrats. Americans are getting ready to say-- whether gleefully or sadly-- "YOU'RE FIRED!"Is there still an anti-red wave waiting to crash down on the heads of Republicans in Congress again, perhaps even more powerfully than it did in November? Will it help Democrats strengthen their majority in the House and win back the Senate despite themselves? Lookin' good so far:And, according to that new AP-NORC poll referenced above... pretty stunning how America is turning on Trump. We as a people blame him for the shutdown and all the turmoil in DC and in our lives and want him to shove his vanity wall up his fat ass. Last month this same Associated Press-NORC poll found his job approval at an already pretty dismal 42%; now it's at 34%, a low for the past 12 months. That should be worth an extra dozen or so Republican-held House seats. Like, for example-- and hopefully-- bye-bye Michael McCaul (R-TX), House architect of Trump's babies-in-cages strategy.
