Veteran Democratic strategist Christina Reynolds sees President Donald Trump reaching “historic lows” that even previous presidents didn’t experience in the largest scandals of their presidencies.
Speaking to The New Republic’s Greg Sargent on Tuesday, Reynolds explained that looking at the previous presidents’ polling from midterm elections shows just how bad things could get for the president.
Trump’s low approval rating rivals that of President Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal. When the Iraq war reached a fever pitch for George W. Bush, his numbers weren’t as bad as Trump’s are now. Former President Barack Obama’s 2010 rise of the Tea Party ensured his party took a hit in the midterms. The major difference among these presidents, Reynolds explained, is that those men believed the poll numbers and took whatever measures necessary to protect the incumbents in their party.
“Those were rationally political actors who understood what it meant to deal with those low approval ratings, who tried to focus on things that mattered to voters,” said Reynolds. “Who maybe didn’t go out and campaign in the way you might have. And that’s not what we’re dealing with here. We have a president with terrible numbers, who doesn’t believe it.”
Trump has taken a different route, she said, visiting one of the most competitive districts in the U.S. to campaign for Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.) by touting the work he’s doing on his ballroom and beautifying Washington D.C., rather than what he’s done to help voters economically.
“So, I think this is an important point — is that Donald Trump is someone who is incredibly underwater and completely unaware that he is not on land,” Reynolds said. “And I think that’s something that something that’s going to be a struggle for Republicans who are on the ballot this cycle to deal with.”
She went further, saying that Trump is “leading [Republicans] off a cliff.”
Voters grow increasingly angry when they hear Trump talk about his Washington D.C. projects rather than about making their lives better. This will have an inverse effect, she said, either getting his voters to stay home or even turning them into Democratic or third-party voters.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to tout his unpopular war with Iran, which is driving up prices, and he ignores or outright mocks the economic plight Americans are facing.
Reynolds also said there’s a bit of an “there’s a pox on all your parties” attitude in politics, but the internal battle among far-left and centrist Democrats isn’t something normal voters care about. So, comparing the generic ballot shows that Democrats are only slightly ahead. One difference is that Democrats recruited many candidates who are invested in their districts, either as former officials or through other forms of service.
“I think we can get beyond it, if we start talking about our values, because we do share many of the same values,” she said of the Democratic Party split. That doesn’t mean “moderating,” she said. It means “run good candidates who understand their districts and are speaking to what voters’ concerns are in those districts.”