Republicans just whiffed on another great chance to break with Trump: On Thursday, the U.S. Senate yet again surrendered one of its core constitutional powers. The chamber voted 49-50 on a war powers resolution directing President Donald Trump to halt the war with Iran. This was the 12th time a war powers resolution failed in the Senate, but the political climate was unlike any previous vote. The midterm outlook for the GOP has gone from tough to downright awful. Gas is nearly $4.50 a gallon; diesel is $6.50. Yet with one exception, vulnerable Republicans sided with the president. To the question, “Can any midterms result shake Trump’s hold on the GOP?,” we now have our answer.
In the spring, I wrote about the similarities between Trump’s second term and former President George W. Bush’s second term. Once again, a president, his party and many in the press have misread a narrow election victory as something more definitive (a windfall of “political capital” in Bush’s case, a “vibe shift” in Trump’s). Once again, the president’s political fortunes have fallen sharply. And once again, the fallout is endangering Republicans in seats that a year ago would have been considered rock solid for the GOP.
Sen. Jon Husted voted against the resolution, two days after he told Politico, “The war needs to come to an end as quickly as possible.”
If anything, in fact, Trump’s pre-midterm prognosis is even worse than Bush. Polling averages put the president’s net approval rating more than 20 points underwater. In the past week, he hit new lows for this term in a half-dozen polls, including CNN/SSRS, NBC News, Reuters/Ipsos, Strength in Numbers/Verasight and American Research Group. Various gimmicks — beef imports, a midterm convention, promises of $5000 checks — have flopped. As polling expert G. Elliott Morris wrote Thursday, “No president has gone into a midterm election this unpopular” — not Trump in 2018, nor former President t Barack Obama before the 2010 Tea Party wipeout, nor Bush in 2006.
No wonder then that in the congressional generic ballot, Democrats’ average lead is now in the high… https://www.ms.now/opinion/iran-war-senate-vote-trump-midterms-gas-prices