As President Donald Trump goes, so goes the Republican Party. That’s what a new NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll released Friday is positing. According to the data, two-thirds of American voters polled say Trump is a factor in how they will vote in the 2018 midterm elections.
While 23 percent of those respondents say the president is at least a minor factor for them come November, a whopping 44 percent say he is a major factor.
This differs pretty significantly from a 2014 poll that found only 47 percent of voters said they considered then-President Barack Obama to be either a major or minor factor in their voting for that year’s midterms.
The poll surveyed 935 adults, 738 of them registered voters, via landline and cell phone from Oct. 21 to 23. The polling occurred prior to the news that mail bombs were sent to CNN and various high-profile Trump critics, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, left-leaning billionaire George Soros, former Vice President Joe Biden and actor Robert De Niro.
A suspect, 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, is in custody ― and reportedly a big Trump fan ― but the president’s response to the bomb scare was minimal. He piggy-backed off Vice President Mike Pence’s tweet condemning the acts, simply adding that he “wholeheartedly” agreed.
On Thursday, Trump blamed “a very big part” of the problem on the media. “Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!” the president tweeted.
Lee Miringoff, director for the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said Trump is front and center in this election. The president’s approval rating sits at 39 percent, according to Marist.
“This is definitively a national election,” said Miringoff. “With a referendum on Trump.”