There aren’t a lot of places left in the United States that are happy with impeached president Donald Trump’s government’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Overlay that with the 2020 presidential and Senate battlegrounds, and it looks like rough going for Republicans.
Approval of the federal government’s handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak remains at an all-time low:
There doesn’t seem much that Trump can do to reverse this slide. Even the gradual decrease of new daily deaths hasn’t perked Americans up:
I would’ve guessed that the reopening of much of the country would’ve cheered people up somewhat, but nope. It’s easy to see why dissatisfaction persists.
Fifteen hundred people are still dying every day—or a 9/11 every two days. Meanwhile, much of that declining death toll has come from New York and New Jersey, but new hotspots are flaring up in other states, meaning the worst of the pandemic is just shifting from metro New York to new areas. This thing is far from over.
And then there’s the economy, of course, with 40 million new people jobless, and with a Republican Senate and White House literally claiming that there’s no urgency for new aid to people, states, and municipalities. It boggles the mind. And people are paying attention. Here are Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s national favorability ratings:
27-58! To compare, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—supposedly a boogeyman—is at a respectable (for a partisan national leader) 40-53. That means that McConnell is a net 18-points more unpopular than Pelosi—despite her being featured in a billion Republican attack ads over the last decade.
Trump himself is trending down. The shift is subtle, but public opinion on the presidency moves very little. Any movement is significant, particularly when the seven battleground states are 50-50 propositions.
So yes, Trump’s botched coronavirus response is deeply damaging to Republicans. And it’s damaging them where they can least afford it. Looking at that coronavirus response map, let’s focus on the seven battleground states:
State |
US government COVID response |
Net |
Arizona |
38% satisfied, 60% unsatisfied |
-22 |
Florida |
42-57 |
-15 |
Georgia |
44-55 |
-11 |
Michigan |
39-59 |
-20 |
North Carolina |
40-58 |
-18 |
Pennsylvania |
37-61 |
-25 |
Wisconsin |
39-59 |
-20 |
All seven battleground states are in double-digit net negative territory. The states with a net negative rating of 20 or higher—Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—total 57 electoral college votes. If presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden flipped those seats and nothing else, he would win the presidency 289-249.
Here are the Senate battlegrounds:
State |
US government COVID response |
Net |
Arizona* |
38% satisfied, 60% unsatisfied |
-22 |
Colorado* |
35-64 |
-29 |
Georgia* |
44-55 |
-11 |
Iowa |
40-58 |
-18 |
Kansas |
48-50 |
-2 |
Maine* |
40-58 |
-18 |
Montana |
46-52 |
-6 |
North Carolina* |
40-58 |
-18
|
South Carolina |
44-54 |
-10 |
The four starred states are the top tier, all of them registering double-digit net dissatisfaction ratings. Iowa is second or even third tier, but that -18 net dissatisfaction shouldn’t give Republicans much comfort. Montana (second tier) and Kansas (third tier) are the only single-digit net dissatisfaction states, but even then, they’re not happy.
So both at the presidential and Senate levels, Trump gross mishandling of the pandemic—failings that he himself highlights every day by saying the dumbest shit imaginable—is an albatross around the necks of every Republican on the ballot. Yes, we have a bit over five months left, but the death toll won’t stop anytime this year, and the economic devastation won’t magically fix itself—not as long as there are 40 MILLION NEWLY UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE, and not as long as we see other human beings as vectors of disease.
If there was any hope that reopening the country would bring Republicans any relief in the polls, that’s not happening. And it’s not just Civiqs polling seeing that. It’s all the polling.
Apparently, being dead or unemployed are just not really that popular. Go figure.