Donald Trump has said he is ready to hit the campaign trail to campaign for Republican congressional candidates? The question is -- would he help or hurt those candidates by coming to their district to campaign for them.
Trump is deeply unpopular in the country, and his job approval ratings have been upside down since he was sworn in. And every candidate he has supported has lost since he became president -- the most recent being the Republican in Pennsylvania running in a supposedly safe Republican district. Trump seems to have no coattails for GOP candidates to cling to, and his endorsement may hurt them more than help them.
That is what a new political poll shows. A plurality of 40% of voters say a visit by Trump would hurt the congressional candidate in their district, and another 21% say it would have no effect at all. Only a tiny 28% say it would help (and I suspect that 28% are Trumpistas who would vote Republican whether Trump came or not).
Those GOP candidates have a decision to make. Do they want to invite him to their district and tie themselves solidly to him, or do they want to keep him away? I think as the election draws nearer we will see many of them trying to separate themselves from Trump.
The chart above uses information from a recent Rasmussen Poll -- done on March 13th and 14th of a random national sample of 1,000 likely voters, with a 3 point margin of error.
