POLLS ARE SERIOUSLY AGAINST TRUMP & THE GOP

…Washington Post joined with the ABC network for the latest poll

If the polls are correct, The president is losing big on "The Wall" & the government shutdown

Well the numbers are coming in and they don’t look good for the president.

The latest Washington Post / ABC poll shows the following:

• 53% overall blame Trump and his Republicans for the shutdown.

• 53% of Independents also blame the President and His Republicans.

• 29% overall blame the Democrats, and only 25% of the Independents blame the Democrats

• 54% overall oppose a border wall

• And totally against President Trump’s statement , only 24% overall say the border situation is a national crisis

• The overall results is that Trump is losing the argument over the government shutdown, or building a border wall.

• No single part of Trump’s framing of the issues have taken a hold with any section of the American public and he is losing badly, period.

• As for the musings from Trump and some other Republicans about declaring a national emergency to fund the wall, only 24% support that idea.

Other polls have even more bad news for the Trump White House as well: A new CNN poll finds that 56% of voters oppose the wall; only 39% support it. Similar to the Post-ABC survey, 55% of voters tell CNN they blame the president for the shutdown, with only 32% blaming the Democrats. Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating has dropped an additional five points since just December.

President Trump said this past weekend “The Democrats are everywhere but Washington as people await their pay. They are having fun and not even talking!” Following the New York Times’s report on the FBI’s investigation of his possible secret links to Russia, he spoke on the phone Saturday night with Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro, who asked a smart-ass question as if he had “ever worked for Russia.”  That triggered a two-minute Trump rant, in which it did not included the word “no” about working for Russia.  He continued ranting about how insulting the FBI’s suspicion was, but the president’s crankiness was no surprise as the new Washington Post-ABC poll said Trump is losing the argument over the government shutdown, building a wall, and he’s losing it all badly.

We are all aware that the usual fallback or those in the White House that are determined to find good news in bad polls for the president. They usually say “at least his base is holding.”  And yes, overall Republican support for the border wall has “jumped 16 points in the past year, from 71 percent to 87 percent” in the Post-ABC poll. However, Trump’s digging in on the border wall hasn’t actually improved his personal support among Republicans, just their support for the wall itself.  Meanwhile, in the CNN poll, Trump’s overall decline “comes primarily among whites without college degrees, 45% of whom approve and 47% disapprove, marking the first time his approval rating with this group has been underwater in CNN polling since last February 2018.”

Those voters, were crucial to Trump’s victories in Midwest states in 2016.  Without them, his path to 270 electoral vote has continued to narrow.

The contradictions in the polling numbers captures just how critical Trump’s crisis has become.  Even as independents have turned more against him, the president’s base and conservative media have become more invested in The Wall. (In the Post-ABC poll, two-thirds of Republicans who support the Wall, oppose a Trump compromise with Democrats)  What was only a top policy priority has become a near holy cause for the right.  So, just whom should Trump choose to tick off?

At this point, what saves the president is that when it comes to shutdowns, voters traditionally forget bad attitudes against the president at voting time.  If he folds soon, whatever damage is done will possibly be long gone by Election Day 2020. 

But what if he doesn’t give in for months? Or what if, just as the whole GOP doubled down on immigration before the midterms, they suffer the consequences?  What if Trump makes The Wall a major issue in 2020?  Suddenly, the shutdown would be a political disaster for Trump, and not just a policy disaster for the country.

What happens before the 2020 election will be critical for the election’s outcome.  Especially whatever comes out in the Mueller Report that is expected next month or before the critical campaign period beginning in July.

Stay tuned to this station!

Copyright G.Ater  2016