Trump’s Bigotry Isn’t Working

What is President Donald Trump running on in the final days of the midterm campaign? He’s going with – once again – full-on bigotry, with nonstop talk about fictional riots over sanctuary cities, fictional threats from a group of poor migrants heading north, and now a racist ad that is reminding people of the ugliest campaign spots in recent history. He’s also talking about taking citizenship away from … well, it’s not exactly clear. But certainly lots of very scary, very threatening Thems.

And, yes, he’s doing all this a week after bombs were mailed to high-profile Democrats and shootings in Pittsburgh and Kentucky. I think he’s also complaining that Democrats are dividing the nation. Contradictions of logic don’t bother him very much.

There’s a lot to say about a president who would campaign like this and a party that would mostly go along with it. But an important thing to remember is that, as the Fix’s Aaron Blake noted this week, we have no idea if any of this will actually help Republicans win.

So far, there’s very little evidence that it’s helping. Yes, Republicans have solidified their position in the Senate a bit, but it’s not clear that that’s due to any recent campaigning or events. (If there was one event that seemed to have moved Nate Silver’s Senate forecast, it was Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation battle.) It’s more likely due to natural Republican voters returning home, which was always the big danger for Democrats in states such as Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas. And remember that Republicans are benefiting from this year’s Senate map: Democrats would have to win in safe states, swing states, and even some quite red states to gain any ground.

Meanwhile, Democrats are doing at least as well in House polling as they have at any point this fall. And Trump’s approval numbers are flat at best, and perhaps falling a bit. None of that proves anything. There’s a lot going on. But again, there’s no evidence that Republicans are benefiting from this stuff.

More broadly, the single most underappreciated fact about this election cycle is that Trump is unusually unpopular. He has the highest disapproval rating of anyone in the polling era at this point in his presidency, despite objective measures of peace and prosperity that would normally make a president extremely popular. And if you believe, as many Republicans do, that Trump’s policies have been largely successful, then his unpopularity is all the more striking. The best explanation for this is that most Americans don’t like everything else that Trump brings to the table. Like campaigning as a bigot, for example.

That doesn’t prove that this ugly turn will backfire on Republicans. For that, we’ll have to wait for careful studies of Tuesday’s results. But so far, there’s more evidence that this stuff hurts Trump’s party than that it helps. I wouldn’t make the cynical assumption that playing the bigot is a winning political strategy in 2018.

1. Erin Cassese at Mischiefs of Faction on what a “witch hunt” is and has been.

2. Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Matto Mildenberger and Leah C. Stokes on the gap between what Congress thinks of public opinion and what constituents actually say.

3. Robinson Woodward-Burns on Trump’s talk about eliminating birthright citizenship.

4. Martha S. Jones on the Fourteenth Amendment.

5. Good Kevin Drum item about the effects of how we consume news these days.

6. David Byler on the Texas Senate election.

7. Josh Marshall on House Republican candidate Lena Epstein.

8. And Mike Duncan on the demise of the Roman Republic.

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