Political observers are understandably focused on November 6, 2018—Election Day. What happens then will be important for the next couple of years: a Democratic wave, carrying that party to control of the House for the first time since 2010, and perhaps even to a majority in the Senate? A strong Republican showing, in which Donald Trump again surprises the experts? A mixed result? And what of the governors and state legislatures?
The outcome of the 2018 electoral contests will have consequences on matters ranging from public policy to the possibility of impeachment. There will be other political implications too, for example for redistricting after the 2020 census. And of course new and rising stars will emerge, and others formerly on the ascendant will fall.
But there’s reason to look ahead as well to the first Wednesday in November. On Wednesday, November 7, the two-year presidential cycle begins in earnest and will quickly come to dominate the conversation.
Much of the attention will turn to the mad scramble for the Democratic nomination. But it will also mark a new moment and a potential inflection point for Republicans.
Since Election Day 2016, we Republicans have been preoccupied with the question of Donald Trump: How did he win the nomination and the election? How pleased, ambivalent, or horrified are we by his standing as leader of the party and president of the country? What do we think of his various decisions, achievements, appointments, and tweets? The discussion of Donald Trump, though, has been almost entirely retrospective or contemporaneous.
All that changes on November 7, when the conversation becomes, in part at least, prospective. The question Republicans will have to begin considering becomes far less “Do you approve or disapprove of what Trump is doing?” It becomes instead “Do you want four more years of Trump?”
Clearly a chunk of the GOP primary electorate will answer that question yes. Trump has a loyal base. But polling—and the 2016 primaries—suggest there are as many reluctant Trump supporters or hesitant Trump approvers as there are enthusiasts. An April 15-17 YouGov survey found that 20 percent of adults strongly approve of Trump’s job performance and 18 percent somewhat approve. In SurveyMonkey’s most recent weekly tracking poll (April 12-18), 23 percent of adults strongly approved and 21 percent somewhat approved his performance. Historical data from both pollsters suggests that some of Trump’s supporters have been ambivalent about him since the beginning of his presidency.
The focus on Trump’s base obscures this ambivalence among Republicans. Those reluctant or ambivalent Trump supporters are the key to the Republican future. They may stick with Trump going forward. Or they may not. Add to them the 15 or 20 percent of Republicans who don’t approve of Trump and you would have a majority of the party feeling queasy about a second term for the president.
Much will depend, obviously, on how the Trump presidency is faring, what the real-world results look like, what Robert Mueller finds, who steps forward to challenge Trump, and many other variables. But they are . . . variables. And Trump’s fate is therefore more variable than might be suggested by snapshots showing him with wide approval among Republicans.
In politics generally, snapshots are misleading. Political life is more theater than photography. We’re early in Act Two of the Trump term. And the inflection points tend to come about halfway through the drama. Situations change, fortunes rise and fall, characters make fateful choices, and new paths are charted.
The drama of Donald Trump’s rise to domination of the Republican party and the American political scene has featured no shortage of surprises. It would seem unlikely that the next couple of years will be any less eventful or unpredictable.
In Macbeth we see the apparently immovable Birnam Wood march on Dunsinane, and in the Winter’s Tale the apparently deceased Queen Hermione come back to life. And life does sometimes imitate art. Is it beyond imagining that a large enough segment of a so far apparently intimidated Republican party could come back to life and—to shift here from Shakespeare to Churchill—“by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor . . . arise again and take [a] stand for freedom as in the olden time?”
