The Trump gamble for the GOP
Donald Trump always seems most grounded in chaos. He revels in the tempest. His combustible approach has touched a chord with his base of primarily non-college-educated and non-urban white voters who have felt eclipsed economically and culturally, and slighted by the nation’s leadership. But he arrives at his inaugural Friday facing more resistance in public opinion than any new president in the history of polling, and with lingering clouds over his legitimacy, symbolized by the surprisingly widespread House Democrats’ boycott of the ceremony. Trump’s agenda is polarizing enough, but the intensity of that opposition appears rooted even more in his relentless belligerence toward any critical voice or institution.
Trump’s tumultuous transition has unfolded like a Hong Kong kung fu movie, each fight transitioning seamlessly into the next. Through tweets, news conferences and interviews, Trump has aimed insults at targets from Georgia Rep. John Lewis to Meryl Streep to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. If Ronald Reagan was the great communicator, Trump is the great instigator.
More so than it initially appeared, there may be method to this madness: The sheer profusion of Trump controversies makes it difficult for the media, the partisan opposition, or the public to focus very long on one before the next supplants it. And for many of Trump’s core supporters, the constant conflict proves he will take the fight to all the institutions they believe have failed them.
But the unprecedented concern about Trump in polling since the election also signals he may be miscalculating how much turmoil Americans will tolerate. “This constant badgering and tweeting may talk to his base, but it’s not growing his base,” said Tom Davis, who served as a Republican representative from Virginia and chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “They have to grow the base or they have a midterm problem.”
Indeed, the clearest message of Trump’s transition is that he has narrowed his support since election day, rather than expanding it as almost all of his predecessors did.
In Gallup polling dating to1953, no new president has ever taken office with a positive job-approval rating lower than the 51% for Ronald Reagan in 1981 and George H.W. Bush in 1989 or a disapproval rating higher than the 25% for George W. Bush in 2001. All indications are that Trump will start in a much weaker position.
Results from this week’s flurry of polls capture an unprecedented level of Trump unease. In an ABC/Washington Post survey, just 40% approved of his handling of the transition, and just 40% said they had a favorable personal impression of him. Only 44% mostly trusted Trump “to make the right decisions for the country’s future.” Other public surveys have returned very similar findings.
Polls during the transition offer some good news for Trump. On dealing with jobs and terrorism, the public’s expectations are more optimistic than their overall assessments. And he retains solid support from whites without a college degree, though even among these voters his transition approval is lagging his election day vote share.
Yet the bigger story is the hardening of opposition to Trump. In that ABC/Washington Post survey, Trump faced disapproval for his transition performance from nearly 55% of white college graduates, almost three-fifths of millennials, two-thirds of adults in urban areas, and three-fourths of minorities.
These numbers may not dissuade congressional Republicans from initially locking arms with him to pass an agenda where their interests overlap — particularly in repealing the Affordable Care Act, cutting taxes and retrenching federal regulation. But if Trump continues to provoke such resistance, it will inexorably make it tougher for him to manage Capitol Hill: Nothing has greater effect on modern congressional elections than the president’s standing.
In the 2010 Republican wave, Democrats won the Senate seats in nine of the 10 states with exit polls where President Obama’s approval rating stood at 48% or above, but lost 13 of the 15 where he ranked at 47% or below. In the 2006 Democratic surge, Senate Republicans lost 19 of the 20 races in states where George W. Bush’s approval rating stood at or below 45%.
Trump could begin his presidency with a job-approval rating comparable to Bush’s weak standing in fall 2006, and to Obama’s lowest level ever. “A number,” says Dan Pfeiffer, former senior strategist for Obama, “that would cause most people to hit the panic button.”
Trump shows no indication of reaching for any button except the one on his smartphone that says “tweet.” But his tenuous poll standing underscores the gamble he represents for Republicans. Trump’s truculent transition suggests he could as easily compound the GOP’s challenges with growing groups like millennials, minorities and college-educated white women. Stormy seas are the only waters Trump knows — and Republicans have now bound themselves to his course like a sailor lashed to the mast.