Are the polls for real?

[kentuck]

If so, it is just a matter of time until the elected Republicans desert the regime, in my opinion. So long as Trump is in the 40's in the polls, Republicans do not much fear the elections.

But when the polls start to show favorable numbers in the 30's, then it is a different story.

Because if Trump is in the 30's, which the latest polls show him to be around 37% favorable, then that is a threat to each and every elected Republican.

In my opinion, if he hits 35% in the polls, then it will be panic city for the Republicans. Trump will not be able to stop the stampede.

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Bush got down to the mid 20's in his second term

I don’t recall any mass abandonment of his policies by the Republicans, although they did push back very hard on one specific policy: his plan to privatize social security.

As Trump drops further, and the economy erodes, I imagine we could see some of the kind of pushback as we have seen from MTG - not abandoning Trump, but challenging republicans to legislate limits to Trump policies that could damage GOP chances in the midterms.

[W_HAMILTON]

6. You don't remember the most lopsided election year in favor of Democrats (2008) in decades?

[Fiendish Thingy]

7. The OP was speaking about *elected* Republicans abandoning Trump

Not rank and file republican voters.

I don’t recall seeing a rash of republican reps and senators crossing the aisle to become democrats in 2008.

[W_HAMILTON]

8. Arlen Specter?

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. One guy switching parties is not exactly a flood of rats leaving a sinking ship

I don’t expect any republicans to switch to become Democrats, no matter how low Trump gets in the polls - do you?

Worst case scenario is Collins and Murkowski become independents, but still caucus with the GOP.

I think there is a greater chance of Fetterman becoming an independent, and Golden switching to the Republican Party, both after the midterms.

[W_HAMILTON]

10. Robert Garcia? Gil Cisneros? Stacey Plaskett?

EDIT: And I think there is a better chance that Republicans get wiped out like they did in 2008 and then whoever remains comes up with yet another new rebranding to try to sell the same old failed Republican shit to the American public yet again.

[Fiendish Thingy]

11. Grasping at straws looks kind of desperate

Plaskett is the delegate from Virgin Islands

Cisneros switched parties years before he was elected to the house as a Dem.

Rather than engage in your hobby of engaging in pointless arguments in response to nearly every single one of my posts, shall we stay on the topic of the OP?

The OP suggests that, if Trump’s approval numbers continue to drop, elected republicans may find their spines and show some opposition to him, even abandoning MAGA/Trumpism (I don’t read the OP as suggesting a mass abandonment of the Republican Party by elected Republicans).

Do you think there will be a large number of Republican elected officials switching parties in the next few years? If so, specifically who do you think will switch? (I’ve already mentioned the individuals I think are most likely to switch, both Republicans and Democrats)

Saw your edit: I agree that despite gerrymandering, Dems are likely to flip a large number of seats (they flipped 40 in 2018- in 2026, with gerrymandering, but a shitty economy and doubled healthcare premiums, I still think they could net a 20-30 seat gain- which would have been a 40-50 seat gain without gerrymandering )

[Polybius]

13. Yet Bill Clinton's victory in 1996 was more lopsided

My favorite President.

[W_HAMILTON]

16. "Election year" being the key term. Republicans won the Senate/House in 1996. They lost them significantly in 2008.

Give me a +7.2% presidential win/Senate win/House win over +8.5% presidential win/Senate loss/House loss any day.

[Polybius]

18. Can't argue with that

Bush was incredibly unpopular in 2008. Trump always seems to bottom out in the low 40's or high 30's. Why won't he go to Bush-levels?

[Wiz Imp]

19. You can't compare head-to-head elections to elections where there was a third

viable candidate who siphoned off a significant amount of votes. Obama got 52.9% of the popular vote in 2008, easily the highest percentage of the popular vote for a Democrat since Johnson in 1964. In 1996, Clinton still got less than 50% of the total Popular vote.

[Polybius]

20. But Perot took more votes away from Clinton than from Dole (or Poppy Bush for that matter)

Clinton would have hit 55% without Perot.

[Wiz Imp]

23. There is no evidence that Perot took more votes from Clinton than Dole or Bush.

Exit polls in 1992 showed Perot drew voters from Bush and Clinton equally. The fact that Republicans continued to hold the House of Representatives after the 1996 election and the Congressional vote was basically 50/50, would seem to contradict the idea that Perot voters would have voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. Anyway, it proves my point, we don't know what the results of a head-to-head election would have been. Speculation is just speculation and can't be used as proof of anything. For that reason, you can't compare the results of a 3 candidate election to a 2 candidate election.

[Polybius]

35. If they drew from Perot equally, It would be almost a tie to Obama's 2008

Here's how it ended up:

1992
Clinton: 43.0%
Bush: 37.5%
Perot: 18.9%

Here's what it would have looked like if Perot drew from them exactly equally:

1992
Clinton: 52.45%
Bush: 46.95%

2008:
Obama: 52.9%
McCain: 45.7%

That is wildly close. Damn, this is a fun topic, I miss both of those years.

[CTyankee]

25. My favorite still has to be Obama. He and Michelle were and continue to be my most wonderful political President & First

Lady EVER in this country's history.

[BannonsLiver]

14. Maybe that didn't make news in CANADA.

[calimary]

2. Sure hope so!

I’m surprised it’s that high.

[dem4decades]

3. If elections were fair, Republicans would be worried, but they're cooking the books in their favor, so they don't care.

[chicoescuela]

5. 110% true. Tsf math

[Wiz Imp]

24. Right. That's why they currently control 350 seats in the House and 70 Senate seats.

[dem4decades]

36. Get back to me after the next "election"

[Martin Eden]

4. Epstein Files could be the tipping point

If that investigation doesn't implicate Trump, why are they fighting tooth and nail to prevent the release?

[crud]

12. The Repugs are gonna wake up one day and say "He did What?!"

and follow that up with "Oh fuck". I think that day will come before the mid -terms, and they will have to decide if they are down with it or not. Hopefully enough will abandon ship.
Bottom line is IF the felon is removed before his term is up. It will be done by the R's.

[WarGamer]

15. His numbers are similar to what they've been for going on 5 years now.

[pwb]

17. A good chance to clean the red out in all States.

.

[lame54]

21. Every time we get one...

They crawl right back

[Wiz Imp]

22. A year before the 2006 midterm elections, looking at October 21, 2005

Gallup had Bush at 42% approval, 55% disapproval. A year later, just a few weeks before the 2006 midterms (October 20, 2006), Bush was at 37% approval, 58% disapproval.

As a reminder, in the 2006 midterms, Democrats netted a +32 Congressional seats. They went from a 201-229 minority, to a 233-202 majority.

While individual Gallup polls showed some fluctuation from month to month, the trend showed low 40's approval for Bush in late 2005 into early 2006. Then Bush's approval fell below 40% effectively for good in February 2006.

Gallup's latest polling has Trump at 40% approval.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/george-w-bush-public-approval

[bucolic_frolic]

26. We don't want Trump to poll any lower than 37-40%

until Election Day.

[bob4460]

27. The media is sane washing Trump

That is why he will not dip to Bush's bad polling levels.

[J_William_Ryan]

28. "In my opinion, if he hits 35% in the polls, then it will be panic city for the Republicans."

Respect your opinion but disagree.

35 percent is the hardcore Trump/Republican base – no Congressional Republican will abandon Trump or that base.

[unblock]

29. Sadly; this is nothing they can't fix with an expensive barrage of propaganda.

We need him to have unfavorably rating so bad that not even a billion dollars of advertising can salvage him from the dustbin of history.

[WestMichRad]

34. ... or manipulation of the vote on Election Day...

[markodochartaigh]

30. "Do you approve of the job he is doing"

is not the same as "Will you vote for". A large percentage of maga voters would vote for the devil if it meant voting against the Democratic party.

Also, even if only 33.3% of the electorate will vote for Trump, if 33.3% stay home and 33.3% vote for the Democratic candidate, the Republicans will still win given their disenfranchisement and gerrymandering.

I don't find much value in perusing Republican polls. I think that the only chance for hope is awakening and educating the ignorant and apathetic nonvoters. I don't think that most of those voters are "in the middle", I think that they don't know and/or don't care. The economy hitting the skids is likely to wake a bunch of them up. The Democratic party needs to be ready to educate these people who haven't been paying attention and won't know what the hell is happening. The Republican propaganda machine will sure be ready.

[FloridaBlues]

31. It's the Republican support they care about unfortunately it's still pretty high. 77_80%

You would think his overall numbers should be in low 30’s.

[pat_k]

32. I think any Republican who won by less than 10% or even 15%, is getting very, very nervous.

There are cracks, and we will see more as his approval continues to slide.

And it will continue to slide.

At least 8 members of the House are breaking with Johnson on his cowardly recess. Soon it will hit a dozen. And then momentum against the indefensible recess will rise, and with it, the resolve to thwart public opinion on heath care subsidies.

The harm of the shutdown is terrible to witness. But as it goes on, don't be surprised if Trump allows it to drag out at least through the first week of Nov.

The reason? Because he wants to suppress release of the Oct job numbers in early Nov.

Remember, the 150,000 or so Federal workers who took the buy out were technically employed through 9/30, which means the bloodbath would be reflected in the report that would have been released in early Nov if the government were open.

I expect Republicans/Trump to cave, but the won't do it until mid-November. This is in line with Kalahi estimate of around 45 days on the betting market.

It is a fine line between suppressing the horrific job numbers and having it resolved before families get together for Thanksgiving.

[Bluestocking]

33. Your forgetting the one factor that keeps republicans in power

Most White voters are morons