Nervous Nellies

A headline in the normally pro-Trump New York Post: Michael Goodwin: Trump needs to hit the reset button if the GOP wants to win the 2026 midterms:

As he barrels toward the end of his first year back in the White House, the president is beset by slumping poll numbers and a pileup of problems, some of which are self-inflicted.

This is my first big puzzle, the "slumping poll numbers". These are the same polls that were wildly off just a few weeks ago, claiming the New Jersey governor's race was a tossup, and Republicans even had a chance in Virginia. But the outcome was dog bites man; blue states voted blue. Nobody's asking what happened to put expectations so far out of whack. But let's proceed:

Even a gaggle of normally obedient Republicans in Congress are growing restless, and his call for gerrymandering House district lines in red states to pad the GOP advantage in the midterms is in danger of producing the opposite outcome.

This comes after Trump's victory in the Schumer Shutdown on November 10, only a little over two weeks ago, in which Mark Halperin marveled over the Republicans' message discipline throughoput the 41-day standoff. This was not your grandfather's Republican Party. I asked Chrome AI mode, "Was there dissent among Republicans in the 2018 government shutdown?" It answered with specific examples, including:

Opposition to the Funding Bill: In the House, during a December 2018 vote on a spending bill that included $5 billion for the border wall, eight Republicans joined Democrats to vote against it. Some of these dissenting members were concerned about the potential for a shutdown or the general increase in spending.

Concerns over Executive Power: Later, in a separate vote in the Senate in September 2019 related to the use of military funds for the wall (following Trump's national emergency declaration to bypass Congress), eleven Republicans voted to block the president's move, expressing concern over the precedent it set for presidential power. This included Senators like Mitt Romney, Mike Lee, and Susan Collins.

Criticism of Strategy: Some rank-and-file Republican lawmakers were publicly critical of their own party's handling of the situation and the decision to force a shutdown, which became the longest in U.S. history. Some in the conservative Freedom Caucus also had internal disagreements about the timing and tactics of the shutdown fight.

"Normally obedient Republicans"? Since when? Here's another story from just this past Monday:

A senior House Republican reportedly warned that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) shocking resignation is just the beginning, and predicted that what happens next could cost the GOP the majority even before next year’s midterm elections.

“More explosive early resignations are coming,” the unnamed figure told Punchbowl News on Monday. “It’s a tinder box. Morale has never been lower. Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel and they will lose the majority before this term is out.”

But other stories don't nesessarily draw the same picture:

Speaker Mike Johnson has told the White House that most House Republicans have little interest in extending the Affordable Care Act's enhanced subsidies, sources familiar with the conversation told CBS News.

Johnson delivered the message in a phone call with senior administration officials as President Trump's advisers were drafting a plan to continue the subsidies for an additional two years. That plan that was initially expected to emerge this week.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Johnson's warning to the White House regarding the lack of GOP House support for the plan. Any White House health care plan would require overwhelming Republican support in the House to be enacted.

It sounds as though there's some sort of productive discussion under way, with some type of consensus emerging that will hold the line against increased spending. On balabnce, this has been a winning issue for Republicans whenever they've been consistent on it. But Goodwin contiinues,

According to Real Clear Politics, his average approval is a mere 43%, while his average disapproval is 54.8%, a spread of minus 11.8 points.

Most troubling, the numbers are far worse on his handling of the economy, which was the issue at the heart of his resounding 2024 victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in all the swing states.

Yet now Trump’s average approval on the economy is a mere 39.5%, against an average disapproval of 57.8%, creating a huge spread of minus 18.3.

Again, Real Clear Politics has yet to explain how its averages were so far off the actual results in the latest elections. Almost all the polls that make up its composites were wildly outside the margin of error, which I discussed in this post. But Goodwin advises,

The big picture suggests he needs a reset, and maybe a rest.

In any event, it’s time to tighten the focus and follow a more methodical approach so the most important things get sufficient presidential attention.

What puzzles me is that just in the past few weeks, Trump has scored a major victory in ending the Schumer Shutdown and securing the resignation of a high-profile "normally obedient Republican". The main focus of the anti-Trump resistance has been to resurrect the question of whether Trump is some sort of subversive, this time giving the military illegal orders. Hysterical allegations -- that he's a Russian asset, that he's a rapist, that he's a pedo, that he's trying to get revenge on his enemies, that he's giving the military illegal orders -- have historically failed to gain traction.

I keep saying it's a major miscalculation to underestimate the guy.