Growing Doubts About Trump

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments

Peter Baker at NYT (4/14):

President Trump’s erratic behavior and extreme comments in recent days and weeks have turbocharged the crazy-like-a-fox-or-just-plain-crazy debate that has followed him on the national political stage for a decade.

A series of disjointed, hard-to-follow and sometimes-profane statements capped by his “a whole civilization will die tonight” threat to wipe Iran off the map last week and his head-spinning attack on the “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” pope on Sunday night have left many with the impression of a deranged autocrat mad with power.

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A Reuters/Ipsos poll in February found that 61 percent of Americans think Mr. Trump has become more erratic with age and just 45 percent say he is “mentally sharp and able to deal with challenges,” down from 54 percent in 2023. Roughly half of Americans, 49 percent, deemed Mr. Trump too old to be president when asked in a YouGov poll in September, up from 34 percent in February 2024, while just 39 percent said he was not too old.

Dana Blanton at Fox News: 

A 56% majority of voters say the Trump administration has not been competent at managing the federal government, according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday. Two in 10 Republicans join most independents (7 in 10) and Democrats (9 in 10) in holding that view, while 4 in 10 non-MAGA Republicans also agree.

Overall, 43% think the White House has been competent at running the government.

Those numbers aren’t unusual. Trump’s marks are in line with those for the Obama administration in 2015, when a high of 44% said it was competent, and the most recent ratings for the Biden administration, when 38% said it was competent in 2022 (that’s down from 51% competent in 2021).

"It may come as cold comfort to the White House, but there’s a tendency for voters to be harsh toward all presidents," says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who helps conduct Fox News polls with Democrat Chris Anderson. "The president’s numbers show how difficult it is to win independents and out-partisans."

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Another 55% say Trump does not have the mental soundness to serve. That’s up 7 points since late 2024 and near the high of 56% in 2023. In comparison, 65% said former President Biden lacked the mental soundness to be president around the time he dropped his re-election campaign in July 2024.

Bad Mojo for the GOP

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.

Mike Allen at Axios:

The U.S. and Iran are escalating their military standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, hardening the world's largest oil supply disruption into something closer to permanent.A second round of IRGC mine-laying this week, first reported by Axios, has drawn a "shoot and kill" order from President Trump and complicated any near-term path to reopening the waterway.
Trump said last night that a pause in hostilities between Israel and Lebanon will be extended by three weeks.

The big picture: Even if peace talks suddenly resume amid Trump's ceasefire, the Pentagon told House lawmakers this week it could take up to six months to clear the mines, according to The Washington Post (gift link).

Jared Gans at The Hill:

Republicans were hit with a double whammy of heartburn-inducing polling on back-to-back days Wednesday and Thursday.

A Cook Political Report poll found Democrats holding a 6-point advantage in a survey of the 36 House districts most likely to determine which party wins a majority in the lower chamber. That was up from a steady 3-to-5-point lead for Democrats in a generic ballot.

And a Fox News poll showed more voters believe Democrats would better handle the economy than Republicans for the first time since 2010, with inflation and the economy topping voter priorities.

Geoffrey Skelley, the chief elections analyst for Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ), told The Hill the Iran war and its economic impact, particularly a spike in gas prices, are compounding to create a more difficult political environment for the GOP.

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 A survey released this week from The Associated Press-NORC showed just a third of respondents said they approved of his job performance, the lowest point of his second term and near the lowest ever. Only 30 percent said they approved of his handling of the economy, an 8-point drop from last month.

Trump’s approval rating in the DDHQ national average stands just above 40 percent, while his average disapproval is the highest it’s been this term at 57 percent.

Virginia Redistricting

 Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

Erin Doherty and Aaron Pellish at POLITICO:

After a narrow loss in Virginia, Republicans are pointing fingers as President Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering fight slips into a stalemate.

Multiple Republicans say the party should’ve spent much more, much earlier to have a better shot at blocking Democrats’ Virginia map, which could give the party as many as four more House seats. And pressure is now growing on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to make up for Democrats’ gains with a GOP-led redistricting effort in his state, as soon as next week.

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Tuesday’s results in Virginia, combined with gains in California and a new court-drawn seat in Utah, have effectively erased the advantage Republicans built off new maps in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri. It’s a stark reversal nearly nine months after Trump first urged Republicans in the Lone Star State to redraw maps, upending the midterm battlefield.

The War Goes On

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments -- now including a war in the Middle East.

Niall Stanage at The Hill:

The administration’s struggle with messaging — a problem throughout the seven-week conflict — reared its head again over the weekend, when Trump’s Energy secretary, Chris Wright, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that average gas prices “might not” return to their prewar level — just less than $3 per gallon — until next year.

Asked by The Hill’s Julia Manchester about Wright’s remarks on Monday morning, Trump contended, “He’s wrong on that. Totally wrong.”

The national average price for a gallon of regular gas was $4.04 on Monday, according to AAA.

Trump allies have taken some heart from the performance of financial markets since a ceasefire came into effect less than two weeks ago. Major stock indices rebounded quickly, hitting all-time highs as the price of oil dropped.

But some experts worry that markets have not fully priced in the scale of economic disruption that has been caused by the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

“I think there is very significant, serious economic fallout from what is going on in the Middle East,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told this column.

 Josh Dawsey and Annie Linskey at the WSJ write that the war in Iran reveals Trump's short attention span, inability to plan strategically, and mercurial approach to decision-making.

When one adviser later asked him about it, he said he came up with the Allah idea himself. He said he wanted to seem as unstable and insulting as possible, believing it could bring the Iranians to the table, senior administration officials said. It was a language, he said, the Iranians would understand. But he was also concerned about the fallout. “How’s it playing?” he asked advisers. (Iran’s parliamentary speaker called the threat reckless.)

On the Tuesday after Easter, he issued the most dramatic ultimatum of his presidency, saying that unless Iran struck a deal in 12 hours, a whole civilization would die.

Again, the post was improvisational, and not part of a national security plan, the administration officials said.

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At another gathering, one night after threatening to end Iranian civilization, Trump stood in the White House with donors and top staff for a reception ahead of America’s 250th celebration this summer. He mused about giving himself the nation’s highest military honor, the Medal of Honor, designed to honor bravery, courage and sacrifice, according to people who were at the reception.

He then told a story about why he said he deserved it: In his first term as he flew into Iraq for a surprise holiday visit to the troops, his jet descended in the dark toward an unlit runway. In dramatic fashion, he counted down the feet to the plane landing, and recalled how scary it was. The pilots kept reassuring him, he said, and they landed safely.

He couldn’t get the medal, he said, because White House counsel David Warrington, who was standing nearby at the event, wouldn’t allow it.

Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, said he was joking.

The GOP Does Not Have a Lock on the Senate

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

The Iran war and the resulting economic turmoil have made a Democratic House very likely and made Senate Republicans nervous about holding their majority.

Nate Cohn at NYT:

In recent polls, Democrats appear tied or ahead in four Republican-controlled seats — the number they would need to take the Senate. These include Maine and North Carolina, where the likely Democratic nominees hold clear leads, as well as Ohio and Alaska, where Democrats have recruited strong candidates in states Mr. Trump won by double digits in 2024. There are also signs that Republicans could be in danger in two more states where Mr. Trump won by double digits: Iowa and Texas.

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In the Trump era, Democratic Senate candidates haven’t had much success at winning in red states. They failed to flip vigorously contested seats in Texas, Tennessee and Montana in 2018 and 2020. And most Democratic red-state incumbents — including those in Florida, Indiana, North Dakota and Missouri — lost re-election. Today, every Democrat in the Senate represents a state that voted for Joe Biden in 2020.

Looking even further back, no party has managed to flip two states that leaned so much toward the other party since 2008. Only one such seat (Illinois in 2010) was flipped in a regularly scheduled election; two more flipped in memorable special elections (Massachusetts 2010 and Alabama 2017). Most of these victories took extraordinary circumstances, like a criminal conviction, a child molestation allegation or a bank seizure.

This time, Democrats aren’t benefiting from anything as unusual as a criminal conviction.

Instead, they’re counting on a favorable national political environment, strong candidates and the possibility that several of these states may not be quite as Republican-leaning as they seem.

Erin Doherty, Lisa Kashinsky, Liz Crampton, Aaron Pellish and Myah Ward at POLITICO:

Republicans were seeing some cracks in their best-case-scenario map even before the war began.

Party operatives were originally bullish about holding North Carolina and Ohio and flipping Georgia. Then, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced his retirement, leaving an open seat in a key battleground state. Republicans nominated former RNC Chair Michael Whatley, and Democrats countered with former Gov. Roy Cooper, who has wide name recognition and strong fundraising chops.

“This is a pretty close state, and it’s a close race,” said a GOP operative in the state. “But with the national environment looking as tough as it is right now for Republicans, and you already have an established governor like Roy Cooper, that’s why I think he’s got the advantage.”

Democrats scored another recruiting win in former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, another prolific fundraiser. Early public polling shows the three-term former senator running neck and neck with GOP Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill the vacancy left by JD Vance’s ascension to the vice presidency and suffers from lower name recognition than is typical for an incumbent.

“I think we’re back in 2018 where the headwinds were against Republicans,” said former Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Renacci, who unsuccessfully challenged Brown that year. “I mean, I ran against Sherrod Brown in 2018 and the national electorate was about a D plus 6 to 8. I think we’re getting about that same place in Ohio.”

In Georgia, a messy three-way GOP primary has Republicans increasingly uneasy about their prospects against Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, who has amassed a massive war chest.

House Retirements 2026

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

 Abby Ward and Molly E. Reynolds at Brookings:

Just over halfway through the 119th Congress, 56 House members have announced their retirement plans, marking the highest number in over 30 years. (An additional five have resigned before completing their terms.) Out of the 56 members retiring this year, 35 (63%) are Republicans, meaning that around 16% of the party’s 217-member conference is stepping down. This group includes 18 subcommittee chairs and three committee chairs.

While retirements generally have consequences for the House as an institution, there are reasons to pay particular attention to the career choices of majority-party members, as they may send signals about party morale heading into an election season.

For instance, the last time Congress saw close to this many retirements was in 2018, and a similarly high share (65%) was from the Republican majority. At the time, some observers saw the large number of retirements as evidence of an anxious Republican Party, and subsequent analyses would eventually connect the number of seat vacancies to the blue wave that followed in that year’s midterms.

The number of retirements is not the only feature that makes this cycle consequential. In addition to being large in number, this year’s class of retirees—and particularly those from the majority—are notable for two additional reasons. First, many are early in their congressional tenures. Second, many are leaving to run for other offices, including at the state level. Both of these dynamics suggest there may be something bigger than midterm anxiety at play, perhaps reflecting broader frustration with Congress as an institution and workplace.

Democrats Cool on Israel

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. 

Andrew Solender and Justin Green at Axios:

Zoom in: Every Senate Democrat who's eyeing a 2028 presidential run voted against arms sales to Israel in votes earlier this week.40 Senate Dems voted on a resolution to block arms sales to Israel, up from just 15 on a similar vote last April. Netanyahu is "destroying the bipartisan nature in terms of support for Israel," Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) told Punchbowl News.

Over in the House, some Democrats are turning against defensive support, including funding for Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.That was "seen as insanely fringe four years ago," Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) told Axios. But multiple Democrats who voted for Iron Dome in 2021 told Axios they're done providing financial aid.The big picture: Older Republicans and white Evangelicals are the last groups to hold majority favorable views of Israel, according to recent Pew polling. For every other group, Israel's favorability has collapsed since 2022.

⬇️ Down 31 percentage points among older Democrats (ages 50+).
⬇️ Down 22 percentage points among both younger Republicans/GOP leaners and younger Dems/Dem leaners.
⬇️ Down 14 percentage points among Protestants, 23 among Catholics and 20 among the religiously unaffiliated.
⬇️ Even white Evangelical support, which was at 80% in 2022, has slid by 15 points.