Trump's Poll Numbers Are So Bad the GOP Is Starting to Panic About a 'Wipeout' [View all]

[brooklynite]

Vice

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s poll numbers have never been worse, and Republicans are starting to panic that he could be headed to a historic wipeout that could drag the rest of the party down with him.

Trump has trailed former Vice President Joe Biden by almost 10 points in recent national polling. And Republicans privately admit things look just as bad at the local level. More than a half-dozen GOP strategists working on Senate and House races told VICE News that they’ve seen Trump’s numbers plunge in states and districts across the country. His standing with voters was already suffering from his botched coronavirus response — and his inflammatory reaction to national Black Lives Matter protests has pushed him even further down with key groups of voters.

“The environment really sucks for us right now. We’ve got a worldwide pandemic, the economy is slipping and now we have a race war tacked on,” warned one GOP strategist involved in multiple races. “If the election were held today, we’d be talking about a wipeout. We’d be in landslide territory.”

“If the election were held today, we’d be talking about a wipeout. We’d be in landslide territory.”

The president badly trails Biden in states and districts that went red in 2016 that he needs to win again in 2020. Trump is in alarmingly poor shape in a number of states that appeared well outside Democrats’ reach at the beginning of the election cycle. And his terrible numbers aren’t just hurting him: Republicans are increasingly concerned that he could cost them the Senate as well, handing Democrats unified control of Washington after the next election.