The conventional wisdom of the liberal media is that the Democrats will regain control of the House and possibly also of the Senate in the mid-terms coming up in a few weeks and that this will be a body blow to Donald Trump. Here’s something the BBC and Channel 4 “fake” news is not reporting – the latest poll numbers are just amazing.
A Gallup poll out this week puts the Republicans favourability rating on 45% compared to the Dems on 44%. To put that in context, the GOP is up 9 percentage points on a year ago and is the highest since January 2011, just after the 2010 mid-terms which saw it claim control of both houses.
Does the poll understate Republican support. The cleansing of Country Club Republicans from a party that is very much Trump’s party now is interesting. In the 2016 General Election I identified the phenomenon of the “shy Trumpster”. With the Dems and their bedwetting liberal bedfellows in the MSM now screaming that, with the passing of saint John McCain, ALL Republicans are sexist, racist, beasts I wonder if there is a “shy-Gop” element. We shall see.
Bear in mind that in US politics, thanks to the pork-barrel nature of Congress, the incumbent always has an advantage and most of the incumbents in the House are Republicans though most Senators up for re-election (the Senate retires in thirds) are, this year, Dems.
In the House there are a good number of those Country Club GOP Congressmen standing down. That may reduce the incumbency advantage but many of those are in “safe seats” so should not be too much of a factor.
In a sense of course these House seats are local contests but polling in some of the 24 seats the Dems need to win if they are to seize control such as The Florida 26th and the California 39th shows the GOP with a comfortable lead. There will be shocks in both directions but as things stand the GOP may well retain control of the House.
As for the Senate where the GOP currently has a 51-49 advantage there are four GOP seats where the battle looks tight but there are seven currently Democrat held States where Trump won the vote in 2016 where the GOP may well make gains. It is not at all inconceivable that the GOP will actually make gains. And those gains will see retiring Republican senators who might have blocked Trump’s ideas replaced by the faithful. In both the House and the Senate the Republicans elected will be far more supportive of POTUS than some of those Country Clubbers standing down.
The economy is, of course, key to the GOP surge. Whether Trump’s tax cuts and other policies are the key to economic growth or whether it is just a continuing growth of the asset bubble is a matter of debate. But the facts are that Americans are richer than they were two years ago, they are earning more and more have jobs. I noted how particular beneficiaries of this are black voters and that is why Trump has the highest approval rating of any Republican leader amongst blacks and Hispanics since the 1960s. A stockmarket correction in October might dent this and be a warning that the real economy may stumble at some stage but right now things look good on this front.
And, as I have noted many times before, on issues such as take a knee, trade deals, transgenders in the military, Trump and the GOP may horrify the liberal elites of the coastal cities and the, increasingly less read and watched, MSM but they are “in tune” with ordinary America. The more the Dems object by trying to bully Ted Cruz and his wife from a restaurant (something that will only enhance Cruz's, already very strong, chance of holding his Texas Senate seat, one of the four marginals the Dems are targetting) or launching obvious smears against proposed Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the more mainstream America recoils.
The Democrat candidates for Congress have never before contained so many extreme left wingers who may appeal to the party faithful but who alienate what is essentially a small c conservative country. The more such folks shout, rant and try to obstruct the President every which way he turns by means fair and foul, the more independent voters shift to the GOP and the more united and determined to vote become registered Republicans.
Of course the BBC and Channel 4 News will not report this poll or any others that do not fit its narrative. No doubt they are preparing to blame the Russians or someone else when all their hopes and predictions are dashed in November. I am not saying that the Red Wave is a slam dunk certainty but those hoping that the Dems will make such big gains that they can impeach Donald Trump on spurious grounds come the new year may be in for a disappointment.
And if the GOP wins the mid-terms and the economy holds then #Trump2020 looks a slam dunk. It may well be time to start dusting off those “Four More Years” signs already.