'Tempted to despair': Trump's resilience causes Democrats to sound the alarm [View all]

[RandySF]

Anxiety is coursing through the Democratic Party as President Trump emerges from his impeachment proceedings as a potent threat for reelection, with party leaders and activists uncertain about how to beat the incumbent and worried about a nominating race that remains crowded and is growing more acrimonious.

While Democrats see Trump as a corrosive figure and a threat to the nation, they also see the president and his well-funded campaign tailoring a reelection bid around the strong economy and visceral appeals to his ardent supporters.

Trump’s robust political standing came into view this past week, as he claimed vindication from his acquittal in his Senate trial despite damaging House testimony about his conduct with Ukraine — and set off on a path of retribution by ousting some officials who were witnesses. At the same time, his Gallup approval rating ticked up to 49 percent, its highest point yet.

The developments have generated convulsions of angst among Democrats, who watched their first-in-the-nation Iowa presidential caucuses conclude in a chaotic fiasco and deliver an inconclusive result. Many in the party are now sounding the alarm that denying Trump a second term could be far more difficult than they had calculated.

“We have a president who isn’t merely unconventional or challenging institutions and elites, or coloring outside the lines. He’s unmoored,” Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) said. Yet, Coons added, he is “very aware” that Trump could win reelection “with these economic numbers at his back, all as millions of Americans grow numb to his behavior.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/tempted-to-despair-trumps-resilience-causes-democrats-to-sound-the-alarm/2020/02/08/8301b71a-4906-11ea-b4d9-29cc419287eb_story.html