Amid the government shutdown, Donald Trump sustained among the worst self-inflicted wounds to his approval rating since being elected. In fact, Trump’s polling hasn't had even a flicker of a bright spot ever since he led the GOP into a virtual bloodbath at the polls last fall. But now that Trump's approvals are among his lowest in a year—especially among women and independents—some Senate Republican are clinging to the illusion that they can separate themselves from Trump’s dismal popularity heading into 2020. Not only did they blanket the Sunday shows to express dismay over a shutdown they did absolutely nothing to end, they are privately arguing that voters won't hold them accountable for presiding over the longest shutdown in history.
As the Washington Post reports: “GOP officials have noted that some polls that have split congressional Republicans from Trump in questions asking who is at fault have found voters blame GOP lawmakers less. For example, a CBS News-YouGov poll conducted Jan. 9 to 11 said just 3 percent of the public blamed Hill Republicans for the partial shutdown, compared with 47 percent for Trump and 30 percent for congressional Democrats.”
One Republican pollster went so far as to suggest the epic shutdown that risked lives, weakened national security, and harmed local economies across the country would be only a faint memory in voters' minds. “This far out from 2020, with the speed of modern news cycles, we’re about a thousand stories from the next election, any one of which may make a lot more difference than this one,” pollster Chris Wilson predicted.
Yeah, keep telling yourselves that. House Republicans thought they could escape Trump's stench in the 2018 election, too. How'd that work out?
The notion that people who took a credit rating hit or were forced to go to food banks for sustenance will somehow have a memory lapse is simply offensive, as former RNC chair Michael Steele noted.
As for people who weren't directly affected by the shutdown, they still witnessed a level of chaos our country has never experienced before. The problem for Trump and Republicans is that for most Americans it only reinforces the running narrative about Trump: He's an impulsive mad man who not only doesn't have the skillset to govern, but doesn't give a damn about public service. Senate Republicans will likewise be saddled with the ongoing narrative that they farmed out their constitutional duties to Democrats without lifting a finger to rein in Trump.
It's true that Senate Republicans managed to unseat four Democratic senators in red states last November (including Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and Florida, which is increasingly leaning red) while their House counterparts got ruined at the polls. But the Senate GOP also had the best Senate map in a century of politics and still surrendered seats in two red states while failing to produce any pickups in blue states.
The Senate map in 2020 still doesn't necessarily favor Democrats, but the record turnout in 2018 is likely to be replicated in 2020—and that spells trouble for Republicans, who have somehow convinced themselves that voters will be interested in splitting their tickets to give GOP lawmakers the benefit of the doubt. That includes Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado, Susan Collins of Maine, Martha McSally of Arizona, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Joni Ernst of Iowa.
As the Washington Post reported about halfway through the shutdown, "Most Senate Republicans look back at the 2018 election and see a two-seat gain after they mostly stuck with Trump." In other words, in a year where they should have throttled Democrats, they're excited that they were contained to a net gain of two seats while making no inroads into any of the blue-leaning Rust Belt states that Trump carried in 2016. Please proceed, Senators.