Trump’s Unpopularity and Its Impact on Congressional Elections

By Chris Adams

A boring two years?

If you looked at President Donald Trump’s presidential approval ratings since he took the White House, you’d think it had been a quiet couple of years.

But that fact hides some underlying trends. For example, the people who strongly disapprove of Trump outnumber those who strongly approve of him.

“For all the craziness we’ve seen since the president was sworn in, the overall opinion of him and support of him hasn’t wavered all that much,” said Amy Walter, national editor for The Cook Political Report and a political expert for WNYC and PBS “NewsHour.” “If you had been in a cave for weeks and weeks and weeks and you came out and said, ‘What happened?’ – if I showed you his ratings, you would say, ‘It’s been a really boring two years.’ ”

Walter (bio, Twitter) laid out the factors at play in the 2018 congressional midterm elections, which could represent a major pick-up opportunity for Democrats. Or not.

Do Democrats have a decent shot of taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives – and possibly even the U.S. Senate? Walter laid out the odds from the latest Cook Political Report analyses (House, Senate).

Underlying those numbers is the intensity factor – the Trump voters who are undyingly loyal to their president and his party, and the Democrats who want to take back Congress to toss out or at least stymie Trump.

“It’s not that Republicans are less enthusiastic, but that Democrats are more enthusiastic than they’ve ever been,” Walter said. “Democratic enthusiasm may be through the roof, but we’re not seeing it universally.”

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