Poll Finds ‘MAGA Republicans’ Sticking With Trump, Who Is Firing Up His Base To Stave Off Midterm Disaster

With five weeks until the midterms, the keepers of conventional wisdom are telling President Trump to focus on economic issues. Instead, he’s firing up his base with moves like sparring with the White House press pool. A CNN pollster reckons that the strategy is sound, but will it be enough to blunt a Democratic wave?Late Monday on Truth Social, Mr. Trump shared a 43-second clip of CNN’s chief analyst, Harry Enten. He cited a Fox News/KFF poll that found Mr. Trump earning “98 percent of the MAGA GOP vote,” with as many saying that “they’re going to be voting for House Republican candidates.”The clip, without less favorable numbers from the larger electorate, put Mr. Trump in the position he enjoys: Under siege in the trenches, ready to lead loyal soldiers to an upset victory. Yet the challenge is whether turnout among his base can be enough to resist the “Midterm Curse” that all presidents face and “the Six-Year Itch” for two-termers.Since 1934, only Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush — in 1998 and 2002 respectively — survived the gantlet without losing seats. Even presidents who are riding high, as this columnist wrote in The New York Sun earlier this month, find that popularity isn’t transferable.Mr. Trump acknowledged this “theory” on August 31, telling Fox News Channel that “when Trump is on the ballot,” Republicans “win, and when he’s not,” his supporters “don’t go to vote.” He asked “people to get out and vote” and to “pretend I’m on the ballot,” because a failure to head to the polls would result in “a slaughter” and “a great victory” for the Democrats.“MAGA Republicans are motivated,” a correspondent for PBS News Hour, Lisa Desjardins, said of the PBS News/NPR/Marist poll on Wednesday, “but the rest of the Republican Party not as much.” Democratic congressional candidates are favored by 57 percent of independents and registered voters favor them by 12 points over Republicans.When Mr. Clinton put himself on the ballot by pushing back on GOP-led impeachment efforts in 1998, his job approval stood at 63 percent in Gallup. Mr. Bush rode post-9/11 approval of 90 percent, the highest Gallup had recorded since it began tallying in 1938.The RealClearPolitics average of 18 September polls put Mr. Trump’s approval at 38.8 and his disapproval at 59.6 percent. By believing that he can rebuild the support of past elections, he may be succumbing to the charms of that mythical Washingtonian, Rosy Scenario, who first emerged in 1981.As natural as it is “to dance with the one that brought you,” that strategy often falls short. In “Beyond the Great Divide,” an erstwhile Republican governor of New York, George Pataki,, wrote that Mr. Bush’s team aimed for “a base election” when he sought a second term. “They wanted to fire up Republican voters as much as possible and drive them to the polls.”Mr. Bush’s senior advisor, Karl Rove, had been “disappointed” in 2000, Mr. Pataki wrote, when evangelicals “hadn’t come out to vote in big numbers.” The governor said that Mr. Bush had included “ridiculous … themes about athletes, character, STDs, and abstinence” in speeches “to appeal to fundamentalist Christians,” but they “were absent again in 2004.”On Thursday at Washington D.C.’s Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Mr. Trump made similar overtures to conservatives. He said that “armies of federal bureaucrats have behaved as if your job is to answer to them” and endorsed voter ID. On Monday, he highlighted passage of the Protect College Sports Act.“MAGA,” Mr. Trump wrote Monday on Truth, “pretend I am on the ballot. Don’t let them open your borders and allow crime to again flourish.” He also highlighted the “BEST Employment Numbers in HISTORY” which — like record-low crime, record-high wealth, and record-low poverty — haven’t been enough to brighten Republican fortunes.Dissatisfaction with gas prices, Iran, and other issues is motivating voters who aren’t wedded to Mr. Trump’s MAGA movement. He’s primed his base to do all it can on Election Day. It just may not be enough to overcome the Midterm Curse and earn one last dance with Rosy Scenario.

Poll Finds ‘MAGA Republicans’ Sticking With Trump, Who Is Firing Up His Base To Stave Off Midterm Disaster

Poll Finds ‘MAGA Republicans’ Sticking With Trump, Who Is Firing Up His Base To Stave Off Midterm Disaster

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