The Republican Party’s prospects in the midterm elections are threatened in part by their trust in Donald Trump, Joshua Green argues this week in Bloomberg Businessweek, citing an internal poll by the Republican National Committee. It reportedly shows that while most American voters believe that Democrats are well-positioned to take back the House, a majority who describe themselves as strong Trump supporters don’t believe that the opposition party even has a chance of victory.
Even as Trump keeps telling his rally-goers and Twitter followers that the GOP might increase its advantage, the report asserts a need “to make real the threat that Democrats have a good shot of winning control of Congress.”
As Green reports:
The internal RNC study finds that complacency among GOP voters is tied directly to their trust in the president—and their distrust of traditional polling. “While a significant part of that lack of intensity is undoubtedly due to these voters’ sentiments toward the President, it may also be partly because they don’t believe there is anything at stake in this election,” the authors write. “Put simply, they don’t believe that Democrats will win the House. (Why should they believe the same prognosticators who told them that Hillary was going to be elected President?)”
It is not surprising that Trump’s most dedicated supporters are prone to believe what he says to be true or that doing so misleads them about reality—there has never been a more brazen or unabashed liar in the White House. Perhaps that is enough to explain the complacency that the RNC found.