For the first time in his second term, President Trump’s job approval rating in the RealClearPolitics (RCP) average poll of polls has dropped below 40 percent.
As of Monday morning, Trump’s RCP average job approval sits at 39.9 percent. His average disapproval rating is 56.9 percent.
Trump’s all-time low in the RCP average was 37 percent, which happened in December of 2017, during his first term, at the height of the Russia Collusion Hoax.
There’s little doubt that the gas price increase caused by the Iran War is a drag on Trump’s approval rating. Watching gas jump over $4.00 a gallon is demoralizing regardless of your opinion on the war. The spike in energy prices has, in turn, lifted the inflation rate. It’s still nowhere near what it was under Joe Biden’s mismanagement, but the Golden Era economy we were promised has not yet appeared.
Trump also promised the Iran War would be over quickly, in four weeks or so, and here we sit almost three months later with higher and higher gas prices while Trump tries to nail down a deal with an Iranian government playing for time.
In the overall scheme of things, there is no question that if Trump can ensure Iran ends its nuclear program and its international wave of terrorism, all of this pain will be more than worth it. That would be a true Golden Era for America and the world. Most of the trouble and disruption in the world comes from Iran and its proxies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
Even so, the immediate electoral problem is not only the short-term pain, but the timing of the short-term pain with the midterm elections less than 169 days away. Is that enough time to bring Iran to its knees and lower gas prices?
The thing is, though, that Trump always pulls a rabbit out of his hat. Also, as the saying goes, 169 days is a lifetime in politics. And let’s not forget that the same media that claim Trump’s political power is waning has recently had to eat crow over his recent victories — smashing victories — in Indiana and Louisiana.
As of this day, the RCP average in the all-important generic ballot has Democrats up +7.2 points, or 48.8 percent to 41.6 percent. That’s a sizable lead, the kind of lead that could herald a midterm blue wave.
Still, so much could happen between now and November that, by Election Day, the Iran War will probably be over and forgotten by then.
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