A couple of politically relevant records were tied or set this week. First, President Trump's approval ranking in the Rasmussen Reports Daily Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 51% of likely U.S. voters approve of the President's performance in office.
Given the constant bashing he's been taking from the media for the last year and a half - the constant drumbeat of allegations of criminal activity, none of which have ever been substantiated - his poll numbers are remarkable. If the media were merely neutral in their treatment of his administration his numbers would probably be in the 60s.
One reason he's doing so well among average Americans is because the economy is doing well. Unemployment set another record this week dropping to 3.9%, the lowest it's been since 2000, and black unemployment, at 6.6%, was lower than it's ever been. Hispanic unemployment was also as low as it's ever been at 4.8%, a mark that it achieved last year as well.
Clinton aide James Carville famously adjured the Bill Clinton campaign team to keep everyone's focus on the economy during the 1992 election. He put up a sign in the campaign headquarters which said, "It's the Economy, Stupid!". The message was clear: elections are won or lost because of the economy, and Carville was shown to be correct, at least back then. If what he said in 1992 still holds true today, things look bleak for the Democrats in 2018, all the happy talk of an impending "blue wave" notwithstanding.
Voters are also giving Trump credit for the apparent sea-change among North Korean leaders and for revisiting the Obama Iranian nuclear deal, which may have been the worst agreement ever signed by an American president, at least since 1950.
Of course, these things could all change overnight, but if the good economic numbers persist and if Kim Jung Un and the Ayatollahs are frustrated in their desire to achieve a credible nuclear capability, and if the Democrats fail to come up with a coherent, positive message for voters, something other than "Trump's bad and we loathe him", the Republicans could well hold on to the House in 2018 and add to their majority in the Senate.
We'll see.
