republicans. had he not pledge todd to defenl those, he would not have won. trumpism has evolved, i think, cuts against all of that. his populist appeal, you know, is limited especially with the tax cut bill. so, again, some of the issues that are working so strongly in his favor i agree. in his favor in the red states are exactly the issues hurting him in the industrial midwest. if there hadn t been a kavanaugh episode from the beginning to the end, all the way through dr. ford, blasey ford, if that hadn t happened, would he be better off or worse from today? trump. i think he would be worse off today. it s hard to say how it s going to play out in the midwest. there s no question about it, republicans, you falk to republicans, conservatives, they feel there is new energy. he feels he s on a roll. whether it s true or not we don t know. these are mirror images, that
year, democrats built a double-digit advantage on this question. remember they just won that special election in alabama. they were up 13 points on average at the end of the year in the generic ballot. well, guess what s happened more recently? that thing has been tightening, closing, and now if you average them together, the margins just four points. you falk to republicans who are trying to hold on to the house, keep democrats from getting those 23 seats, this he say they can do that if it s four points. if it s 13, forget about it. but if it s four, republicans thunk they can do it. what else is happening? donald trump s approval rating. it s been pretty low throughout his presidency but there s a question here of how low is it going to be. there s a certain point there where it might not cost republicans the house. it was 37% at the end of last year. it was in the 30s for a lot of 2017 into 2018. more recently it has begun to tick up. again, 44%. we re not talking reagan in 1984 he