The Jerusalem Post

Hot economy is cold comfort for Republican­s in tight midterm races

- INSIGHT • By JONATHAN SPICER and ANN SAPHIR

FLEMINGTON, New Jersey/ MODESTO, California (Reuters) – Linda Hults is the sort of Republican who President Donald Trump would expect to reward his party for the hottest US economy in a decade by helping defend its grip on Congress in dozens of tight races across the country.

Instead, the retired teacher says she is “at a loss” deciding who she will vote for in this week’s election because of Trump’s “deplorable” character.

“I know many people feel good about earning more. But I can’t overlook the whole picture,” Hults said at an openair outlet mall in Flemington, New Jersey, where five-term Republican US Rep. Leonard Lance faces a stiff challenge from Democrat Tom Malinowski.

“After this, I might just be a plain old independen­t.”

Trump has wagered big that a nearly $1.8-trillion blast in tax cuts and extra spending would leave his party all but invincible at a time when unemployme­nt is at its lowest since the 1960s and the economy is expanding at a robust 3.5%.

But Hults’s concerns show why Republican­s may be vulnerable to losing control of the House of Representa­tives in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Trump gets high marks for his management of the economy, and in two-thirds of the 60 most competitiv­e House districts incomes were higher than the national median in 2017. Yet even in areas where incomes grew the strongest since Trump’s inaugurati­on, such as the central New Jersey district where Hults lives, polls show voters mostly split or leaning towards the Democrats.

A Reuters analysis shows that in 17 of competitiv­e districts median incomes rose by more than 4% last year, well above the 2.6% nationally. Still, polls analyzed by RealClearP­olitics indicate voters favor Republican­s only in seven of those districts.

Interviews with nearly 30 voters in two of the districts with strong income gains suggest Democrats and many independen­ts are keen to punish the incumbents, with some citing Trump’s divisive scapegoati­ng, and others his disregard of institutio­ns and decorum.

A strong economy usually helps incumbents, and with business optimism high and median household income having risen three years running, traditiona­l pocketbook issues may still save some Republican­s in competitiv­e races.

“Everyone benefits from the upswing,” said Jack McDade, a Republican voter in Lance’s district, who says the candidate would have been wiser to fully embrace Trump’s policies.

Polls do favor Republican­s retaining control of the Senate. They show, however, that Democrats have a good chance of winning 23 more seats and securing a House majority.

Split control of the Congress could stymie further policy stimulus Trump would like to roll out to bolster his reelection bid in 2020. Already, a month-long stock market decline saw Trump shifting blame to the Federal Reserve for tapping too hard on the economy’s brakes.

In some too-close-to-call districts where polls show better-educated Americans are less supportive of Trump than elsewhere, Republican candidates are distancing themselves from him to survive.

Lance, the congressma­n whose district is a tangle of wealthy suburbs and wheat fields, voted against Trump’s tax bill because it hurt local homeowners. He told Reuters he was “not afraid to disagree with the president.”

Some Republican­s interviewe­d, however, expressed resignatio­n about the midterm races, in which the party in power often loses congressio­nal seats. “I think people have given up,” Nicole Soares, a dental assistant lunching in Turlock, California, last week, said of her fellow Republican­s.

Voters in Soares’s district of almond and dairy farms, about 70 miles east of San Francisco, elected Republican Jeff Denham three times since its boundaries were redrawn in 2012. Yet even though jobs grew faster here than in all but two of the 60 battlegrou­nd districts analyzed by Reuters, polls conducted by The New York Times and UC Berkeley’s Institute of Government­al Studies show Denham and Democrat Josh Harder in a close race.

“I haven’t seen Denham do anything so far, so at that point in time, all’s you can do is change horses and hope the next one runs better than the last one did,” David Ablett, 74, a retired car dealer, said. Ablett, who said he was concerned about health-care costs and a lack of good jobs, spoke after voting early in downtown Modesto.

Through October more than 42% of those surveyed in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said the economy was on the right track, compared to 38% who said the opposite. The positive response is twice what Barack Obama received late in his second term as president.

Yet the poll showed voters rate Trump lower for his overall performanc­e than for the state of the economy, which poses a challenge for Republican­s running outside of Trump’s stronghold­s.

“The difficulty is acute in suburban districts where Trump is very unpopular,” said Andy Laperriere, head of US fiscal policy research at Cornerston­e Macro, in Washington. “The worry for Republican­s is a mismatch of intensity among voters, especially if supporters are holding their nose, while Democrats are out to punish.”

While men and voters who are older, white and wealthier are the president’s biggest backers, according to the Reuters poll, analysts say much will depend on white women with at least a college degree, who are roughly split on the question of the economy.

Zita Heinz, who runs a planning company in the tight New Jersey district, said she had backed both parties in the past, but was now leaning Democratic, worried that Republican­s might weaken health care.

“I have to vote to cancel out my husband’s vote,” she said while heading to cast an early ballot in the town of Somerville last week.

 ?? (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) ?? SUPPORTERS GREET President Donald Trump at a rally on Sunday at Middle Georgia Regional Airport in Macon, Georgia.
(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) SUPPORTERS GREET President Donald Trump at a rally on Sunday at Middle Georgia Regional Airport in Macon, Georgia.

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