Nationally, Trump continues to poll poorly, but if you look at key states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, Trump surprisingly polls evenly or ahead of Democratic candidates. Ohio has long been a toss-up state but Michigan and Wisconsin are traditionally Democratic states. Midwest voters claim to have voted for Democratic candidates in the midterms but say they will return to Trump in 2020.
Some said they prefer a split government, so voted for Democrats to check Trump's executive power in the midterms. If they don't like all the power Trump wields why vote for him in 2020, and instead vote for Republican Congresspersons to balance a potential Democratic president's power?
The sad truth is many of these persons don't put a lot of thought into how they vote. It is mostly a reflexive action driven by an emotional response to a candidate, which is why all those fake ads worked so well in 2016. Trump has been able to shrug off the scandals that surround his administration, as Reagan did in the 80s, by projecting confidence in the face of adversity. Only if he were to project insecurity and weakness, would his voters abandon him.
I remember an excerpt from one of Oliver Sacks' books in which he described the reactions to a Reagan speech at an assisted living facility. Most of the elderly persons were emotionally supportive of the president, but one woman showed no interest in the speech on the television. It turns out she was tone deaf and was unimpressed by Reagan's grammar. His speech didn't make any sense, she said to Dr. Sacks.
Fortunately for Trump, many of his supporters won't read the transcript as his campaign has encouraged them to do. If they did, they would find it contradicts much of what he says at rallies. Better just to market his latest catch phrase as a campaign t-shirt.
The secret to his success has been his ability to turn adversity into a rally cry for his supporters. The only question is how far this support extends? If it is as it appears in Wisconsin that some Democratic voters are still willing to cast their lot for Trump in 2020 then Democrats have a lot to worry about. But, if this unquestioning support is only confined to his base then Trump could be in for a nightmare in November.
I think the Marquette poll is an outlier, although FiveThirtyEight gives the polling group a good score of A/B, even if it has only been predictive 77% of the time. Polls tend to factor a lot of variables in their sample sizes of the electorate. Only 700 registered voters were surveyed in Wisconsin. However, this positive polling has certainly been heard in the White House, as it trumpets the findings across social media.
However, most polls show Trump trailing the leading Democratic candidates in Midwest states, albeit barely. This would make sense as his tariffs have had a very negative impact on farmers in this region, with farm foreclosures on the rise in Wisconsin. However, persons have been known to vote against their best interests before.
Trump's ability to project power is the only thing he has going for him. Anyone looking at his record would be appalled. Even conservatives have expressed their frustration at his inability to get any of his signature campaign initiatives through Congress, most notably the wall. He has had to funnel money from the Pentagon to get what little bit of wall he has managed to erect along the Texas border. The rest has come from private sources. Trump has no major trade bill to claim credit for. His new USMCA deal languishes in Congress, pending revisions proposed by Democrats. The Great China deal remains on hold three years since his election. Yet, he can still claim nearly 90% support among Republicans. So, he continues to play on polarizing social issues like the faux War on Christmas, which he audaciously chose to extend to Thanksgiving at a recent rally, leaving his Friends at Fox flummoxed by what he meant by this.
"Ours is not to reason why," as Alfred Lord Tennyson said, "ours is but to do or die." This seems to sum up the devotion to Trump pretty well.
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