Tomorrow we’re going to get our first widespread read on what actual voters think of the Trump presidency. Of course, Trump isn’t on the ballot. Nor is it a federal election. But, more than at any other time in our lifetimes, all political questions revolve around Trump and whether you’re for or against him. We’ll get indirect reads on how perceptions of Trump are affecting voting behavior. We’ve also just gotten a series of new national polls, timed for release just before Tuesday. They show Trump almost as unpopular as he has ever been, not only during his second presidency but at the most feral and unhinged moments of his first. FiftyPlusOne shows his average approval numbers underwater by 15 points, with approval at 40.9%. If there’s anything “new” here, it’s that his high disapprovals are breaking more ground than his low approvals. He’s wringing the final undecideds or not-paying-attentions out of the electorate.
But the picture is different on the generic ballot — the standard measure of a congressional election. There, it is a kind of choose-your-own-adventure. The FiftyPlusOne average here have Democrats up by 3.5 percentage points — 45.6 to 42.1. That’s okay for the Democrats but it’s far closer than you’d expect with a president this unpopular. The most recent numbers are fairly scattered. NBC and Verasight have the Democrats with an eight point advantage. CNN gives them a five point advantage. But Washington Post/ABC have it at two points. NewsNation (whose pollster I can’t identify) says it’s essentially even.
As you’ve probably already heard, Donald Trump went on Truth Social late last night and announced that the time had come for his senators to pass a clean “continuing resolution” to reopen the government with a simply majority vote by abolishing the filibuster. The only proper response to this is “bring it on.” It’s never good to cower, of course. “Give it your best shot” is always the proper posture. But if Trump is able to accomplish this (I’m skeptical — more on that in a moment), that’s great news.
We’ve got about 20 tickets left for our 25th Anniversary Live Show next Thursday Nov. 6 at Metrograph in Manhattan. If you’ve somehow missed our messaging on this show until now, the programming includes an oral history of TPM with current and former TPM staff, a live edition of the Josh Marshall Podcast featuring Kate Riga, and an (open bar) cocktail reception. If you’ve been waiting for the absolute best time to score a seat, the time has come. Just click here.
I still have some relative confidence that the Gaza ceasefire deal will make its way through the current flare-ups. That’s because the deal itself has very powerful stakeholders behind it, ones who can apply overwhelming pressure to the warring parties if they choose to. But what we’re now seeing all the reasons you’d expect a deal like this with Donald Trump to go south.
First is attention. The best argument against this deal sticking has always been that Trump will get bored and lose interest. It’s pretty clear that’s already happened. We heard his press secretary say only days ago that his main priority is building the new White House ballroom.
I’ve made versions of this argument here in the Editors’ Blog and on the podcast many times. But it’s so critical and so beyond dispute I wanted to state it here as clearly as possible. There is no future for civic democracy in this country without reforming the Supreme Court. Putting that more specifically, the only way to recover from Donald Trump’s rapid lunge into an authoritarian American future is a future point at which Democrats regain control of the federal government — a trifecta — and institute a series of laws which cut off the channels Trump has exploited to get us to this point. That doesn’t solve the problem of Trumpism. The core issue is that very large minority of Americans who support his style of autocratic government. But that cuts off many of the paths Trump has used to build a presidential autocracy under the thinnest cover of law. You need, among other things, a federal law to place strict limits on partisan and racial gerrymandering. It’s only one example out of many – you need laws re-instituting true independent agencies, drastically limiting the use of military forces on US territory, barring president’s from claiming budgeting authority, et al. I note this example because it came up today when Kate and I recorded this week’s podcast. But even this comparatively uncontroversial federal statute would certainly be overturned by the Republican justices.
The man who federal agents accused of dealing Greg Bovino a groin injury from which the Border Patrol commander purportedly needed two weeks to recover will no longer face charges after prosecutors on Monday moved to drop their case against him.