… For all the pyrotechnics about immigration, Trump’s re-election campaign is based on a strong economy and a soaring stock market. With the unemployment rate at 3.6 percent, any president would be entitled like Trump to crow about the economy without crediting his predecessor.
The problem is that, with the best economy since 9/11, Trump’s approval rating is mired in the low 40-percent range. … And what has remained unchanged is that more than 50 percent of the voters disapprove of Trump’s performance in office, despite the economy.
Yes, you can be elected president while losing the popular vote, as both George W. Bush and Trump himself have demonstrated in this century. But political consultants are not normally in the habit of advising clients to begin their re-election campaigns with half the electorate in unyielding opposition. CONT.
Walter Shapiro, Roll Call