The Trump White House is in chaos and people know it. If Democratic candidates play their cards right this year, this fact may help them in their efforts to take back control of Congress.
According to a new Morning Consult poll, “62% of registered voters said the Trump administration is running somewhat or very chaotically.”
Here are the details:
“In an April 26-May 1 survey of 1,991 registered voters, 62 percent say the administration is running somewhat or very chaotically, a rise of 4 percentage points from a March 15-19 poll and 8 points from a March 1-5 poll. Those who say they think the administration is running very well or somewhat well fell to 32 percent from 36 percent in the mid-March poll.”
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The poll makes clear that the Dr. Ronny Jackson fiasco and the scandals of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt have hurt Trump. The Stormy Daniels/Michael Cohen affair, and the revelations that Trump wrote his own health report haven’t helped either.
Trump has picked up on this theme and even tweeted about it.
“The new Fake News narrative is that there is CHAOS in the White House. Wrong! People will always come & go, and I want strong dialogue before making a final decision. I still have some people that I want to change (always seeking perfection). There is no Chaos, only great Energy!”
The new Fake News narrative is that there is CHAOS in the White House. Wrong! People will always come & go, and I want strong dialogue before making a final decision. I still have some people that I want to change (always seeking perfection). There is no Chaos, only great Energy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 6, 2018
Yet according to Morning Consult less than one-third of American voters think the Trump administration is “running well.” How does this translate into Democrats winning elections in the November midterms?
The answer for Democrats, according to the Washington Post, is not to run “against Trump” but to use the Trump chaos to run against the Republican Congress.
The argument goes like this:Â Â Republicans in Congress are not performing their constitutional duty to effectively oversee the executive branch.
Political pollster Matt McDermott of Whitman Insight Strategies says that Democrats don’t need to even mention Trump when campaigning for Congress in order to win. Instead they should get voters to think about congressional Republicans and how little they have done to oversee the president and his appointees.
“For me, the buzzword is accountability,†McDermott said. “People expect their elected officials to be held accountable for their actions. Democrats need to simply say we expect our elected officials to live and govern by a set of norms and standards, and we expect the House and Senate to maintain those standards, and they are not doing that.â€
Trump is not up for reelection this year, so Democrats would be wise to not run against him, but to run against the Republicans in Congress who are not doing their jobs. This is their path to victory, and we can only hope that they are savvy and wise enough to take it. If they do, then the chaos in the Trump White House will help them create a Blue Wave in the 2018 midterms, and it will sweep Democrats back into power.
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
