The Democrats are hoping for a “Blue Wave” of victories in the upcoming midterm elections. Midterms generally favor the party not in the White House, but they’re hoping for bigger than usual results this year.
The recent spate of Republican decisions to not run again certainly bodes well for them, but there are some indicators that may keep the wave smaller.
President Trump’s approval rating has been rising steadily for almost a year despite the overwhelming amount of negative press he gets.
Now today a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that millennial support — a voting bloc that generally favors them — for Democrats running for Congress is slipping a bit. It’s down about 9 percent in two years and more millennials now think that “the Republican Party is a better steward of the economy.”
The poll also found that two-thirds of the respondents aren’t fans of the president, however “their distaste for him does not necessarily extend to all Republicans or translate directly into votes for Democratic congressional candidates.”
That could be key in November. At present, the Democrats’ only real message is “Trump’s awful.” It’s not that different than what lost 2016 for Hillary Clinton, when her main selling point was, “I’m not him.”
A political science professor quoted in the article noted that younger voters aren’t “as wedded to one party,” and that could be problematic for the Democrats.
The Republican tax cut is cited as one possible reason for shifting attitudes. The Democrats fought that on the grounds that it would be catastrophic and bring about various kinds of gloom and doom. Even after the bill’s passage, when corporations began giving bonuses to employees as a result of the reform, prominent Democrats still claimed it wasn’t really doing any good.
This “swing and a miss” approach to messaging just half a year away from the election isn’t going to sway anyone who may still be on the fence, and it now appears that there might be a few more of them.
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