NYT headline:
Trump’s Sagging Popularity Drags Down Republican Senate Candidates
And of course one of those candidates is Sen. Thom Tillis who— according to an NYT Upshot/Siena College poll of registered voters in North Carolina–is trailing Democrat challenger Cal Cunningham by 3 percentage points.
The president has sagged among white voters, especially those who are younger and those who have college degrees. He has received especially poor marks from this slice of the electorate for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and his response to the protests against racial injustice.
His divisive conduct has, in turn, soured voters on his party’s other candidates. Michael Maddox, a 60-year-old teacher from Fayetteville, N.C., said he had been disturbed by Mr. Trump’s stated desire to slow coronavirus testing and by his use of racist language, describing the pandemic as “Kung Flu.”
“We’ve gotta get him out of there,” Mr. Maddox said, “and I think one of the ways to help do that is to try to remove some of the folks who support his agenda.”
Mr. Maddox said he has been unnerved by what he said was Mr. Tillis’s “silence” in the face of these and other remarks by Mr. Trump.
It’s anyone’s guess how the presidential election will turn out–it didn’t look good for Trump in 2016, either–but even John Bolton–in the middle of criticism of the president–said it was imperative for Republicans to hold the Senate.
