ANALYSIS — The good news for Republicans is that President Donald Trump’s job approval rating isn’t getting any worse. The bad news is that many of the issues that drove his rating down in the first place are making their way back into the news, with the midterm elections creeping closer with each passing day.
After beginning his second term with a 52 percent job approval rating, according to Nate Silver’s national average, Trump embarked on a steady downward slide, slipping to a low of 38 percent near the end of May. Since that low point, the president has seen modest improvement to 40 percent, as of Monday.
And GOP strategists have been encouraged by some improvement for their party in the generic congressional ballot, which asks respondents whether they plan to vote for the Republican or Democratic candidate for Congress. They specifically point to the latest Washington Post-Ipsos poll, which had Democrats with a 3-point advantage, even though Silver’s average has shown Democrats with a consistent 6-point edge for the past five months.
Republicans, who are defending narrow majorities on Capitol Hill, are looking for any bits of hope, given the traditional midterm headwinds they face and Trump being in worse shape now compared with his first term. At his lowest point, in mid-2017, Trump was upside down by 20 points on his job approval rating, but he bounced up to being 13 points underwater ahead of his first midterm, when Republicans lost a net of 40 House seats (and netted two Senate seats).
