Donald Trump said this week that it won’t be his fault if Republicans perform poorly in next month’s midterm elections, but a leaked document shows that his own party believes the opposite.
According to Bloomberg, a private GOP survey concluded that Trump would, in fact, be central to the outcome of the November elections.
“If Republicans lose the House, the party’s own polling suggests Trump will deserve the lion’s share of the blame, whether he cares to accept it or not,” the report notes, adding: “The internal report, conducted last month for the Republican National Committee by the polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, states explicitly that ‘research indicates the determining factor in this election is how voters feel about President Trump.'”
More from Bloomberg Businessweek:
It’s true that midterms are generally tough on a president’s party, but it’s no mystery why that is. The out party typically thrives because midterms are viewed as a referendum on the president. A Brookings Institution study found that in 18 of the past 20 midterm elections, the president’s party lost an average of 33 House seats.
There’s little reason to think this year will be different. A new survey from Morning Consult find that Trump’s approval rating is a meager 43 percent, while 52 percent disapprove of his performance. The same survey also suggests that voters find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between Trump and Republican members of Congress.
That could turn out to be a positive for Republican Senate candidates challenging incumbent Democrats in states that went for Trump, such as North Dakota and Missouri. But if Republicans lose the House, the party’s own polling suggests Trump will deserve the lion’s share of the blame, whether he cares to accept it or not.
If Donald Trump was confident his party was going to succeed in the midterms, he wouldn’t be trying to distance himself from the upcoming results. As MSNBC’s Ari Melber pointed out on Wednesday, his refusal to take any responsibility is essentially an admission that he knows trouble is on the horizon.
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“If Trump thought Republicans would win, he would be happy to claim credit,” the MSNBC host pointed out. “So the new spin does tell you where his head is at.”
Trump can spin all he wants, but he is alone in his belief that the Nov. 6 elections will have no connection to him. They are, in fact, a referendum on him, and Republicans are likely going to lose at least one chamber of Congress as a result.
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