[vienna]

...yes, and GOP support only garnered Trump a second place finish at barely over 46% of the vote and 3 million votes less than the DEM candidate. No matter how you slice it, the GOP was/is a minority party and Trump is a minority president; 54% of us voters voted for any one else but Trump and no matter how many times you crow about how 'popular' Trump is with GOP voters, the fact remains the rest of us, the majority of voters, have no use for him or his 'politics'. Trump won, not by the will of the voters, but, rather by a machination of the Electoral College process, something the Clinton camp took for granted; do not assume the same mistake will be repeated...

Basing your conclusion Trump still has a shot at reelection (if he doesn't manage to get himself removed) on his high numbers within the GOP is specious; taking a selected sample of the whole and saying it represents the whole is a questionable tactic. Here in Los Angeles, there are a large number of former New Yorkers and a large number of them have formed a NY Yankees booster club; if I were to ask them what they think of their team, I am fairly confident I would get an overwhelmingly positive answer regarding the Yankees; does this prove the Yankees are the overwhelming favorite baseball team in the city of LA? Well, the Yankees are that group's overwhelming favorite, and those fans are a 'core' group, and they are very vocal about their stance, but I think, realistically, the very much larger group of LA Dodger fans have more of a say as to who the majority of LA thinks is the better team. So, Trump is popular among the GOP: so what? It's a minority of the voters, and, at the rate some of the non-"core" elements are wavering, if not actually bailing, the very small "core" may be all the GOP will have left. Look at the graph Nipplespanner posted: what does it say about Trump that the two lines, Approve and Disapprove, are moving steadily apart? And what does it say that Trump is the first president to have his ratings at or below the ratings when he took office, something not even the worst presidents have experienced. You say elections are won by coalitions; very true. But reelections are won by broadening the size of the coalition beyond the base or "core". In this, Trump is failing miserably; and, if his decline continues, the GOP stands to lose everything come 2020 and to lose significantly in 2018. Consider this: if Trumpcare gets enacted as Trump has fashioned it, a very large number of those who will lose healthcare coverage or have coverage severely curtailed are voters in the states that helped Trump win the Electoral College in 2016; will they look favorably on Trump and, by extension, the GOP, in 2020? Beyond those "core" states, what about other issues such as the newly revived Federal efforts to re-criminalize marijuana or rollback environmental protections, etc.? As the effects of Trump policies becomes closer to the everyday lives of the voters, do you really think they are going to sit there and say "Well, he and the GOP have taken away the health care I and my family really need, but you know what? I'm gonna vote for him again, anyway."?...

For the GOP, the really most important number is not the GOP support; they already have that and they are, numerically, the minority party. In 2018, the Mid-Terms are a pure vote: no electoral colleges, no swing states, no finagling;one person, one vote. They need numbers to win and they need numbers larger than what they have now. They need to retain control of the House and their 'core' cannot guarantee that outcome. If Trump continues to hobble the GOP, there is very little chance the non-GOP voters will be sympathetic enough to the GOP to lend them their vote. Without a goodly portion of the non-GOP vote, they have no coalition and they will have no win, and that will be thanks to Trump and the GOP backing him...





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