They like the judges and they definitely love the economy. It seems GOP voters just don’t like him personally, and that should worry President Trump. A new poll from the independent New Hampshire Journal shows that 4 in 10 Republicans in that state think it would be a good thing if the president faced a primary challenger.
While it’s unlikely anyone would beat Trump in a GOP primary, it’s still a problem.
“The fact that 40 percent of Republicans in an early and influential state like New Hampshire think a Trump primary challenge would be ‘a good thing’ should get the GOP’s attention,” said New Hampshire Journal’s Politics Editor Michael Graham. “The fact that nearly 60 percent of unaffiliated or independent voters — all of whom can also vote in the 2020 primary — agree raises the stakes even higher.”
Because unaffiliated voters can cast ballots, there is reason for moderate alarm in the Trump camp. No Republican except former President George W. Bush in 2000 has lost the New Hampshire primary and still won the nomination.
Even if you posit that Trump will probably win New Hampshire, any sort of credible challenge should terrify Trump. As Perry Bacon Jr. and Dhrumil Mehta have pointed out over at FiveThirtyEight Blog, the last three presidents who lost re-election had one thing in common: serious primary challengers.
Gerald Ford faced then California Gov. Ronald Reagan; Jimmy Carter, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.; and George H.W. Bush from Pat Buchanan. More bad polling and chances increase that Trump finds a challenger on his right flank. If he does, there isn’t much he could do between now and Election Day to convince a red electorate to stay faithful in New Hampshire.
There’s not much Trump can do to win over these still-uneasy Republicans, it seems. Seventy-nine percent of New Hampshire Republicans support confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Eighty-four percent of New Hampshire Republicans think the economy is better today under Trump than it was under his predecessor.
If those two accomplishments can’t impress, Trump is in trouble. If Democrats retake the House, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to push his policy agenda and build a solid platform for a second term. And if policy isn’t the problem, if everyday life continues to improve, there is only one conclusion: Trump has a personality problem.
No Republican has emerged from the mist to challenge Trump as of now. Mitt Romney wants to be a senator for Utah. And while Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, probably daydream about the White House neither has anything special that the 15 other candidates who tried and failed to defeat Trump in 2016 didn’t have.
The president can take comfort in that fact, but he should still worry about Republican dissatisfaction. It could become a trend. A national Morning Consult/Politico poll from May showed that 38 percent of GOP voters support the idea of a primary challenger.
