The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday morning had both good and bad news for President Trump and his party. The good news was that optimism about the direction of the country and the percentage of people believing that the economy is improving are both up from the last NBC/WSJ poll in April. Not surprisingly, the president’s job approval was up, as we have seen in other polling of late.
The bad news for Trump and the GOP is that even with that hopeful news, Republicans are 10 points behind Democrats on the closely-watched generic congressional ballot, while the president’s numbers—albeit improved — are still really bad and underwater. Democrats have a substantial advantage in intensity going into this midterm election, and respondents said, by a very wide margin, that they prefer voting for a candidate that would provide a check on Trump. In short, people see things as getting better, but Republicans — particularly in the House — are still in deep trouble. CONT.
Charlie Cook