The Trump presidency is still alive and kicking

A week ago, my friend Yaroslav requested that I write more about economics and less about politics. So I deeply and humbly apologize to Yaroslav for writing another politics post.

In the past week or so, some people have claimed that the wheels are coming off the Trump presidency. For example, here’s Max Burns, writing in The Hill:

It doesn’t take a political genius to recognize that things are in free fall over at the White House…Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing mounting Republican criticism over a potentially illegal order to kill the survivors of a Caribbean boat strike. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice is in disarray after three failed efforts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James…Trump’s approval rating cratered to a new low of just 36 percent in late November following months of open-air dysfunction and his repeated failure to address fundamental problems like rising consumer prices.

It’s true that Trump has had a string of setbacks recently. Indiana rejected Trump’s proposed redistricting plan, which would have used gerrymandering to give the GOP 2 more seats in Congress. The GOP-dominated Indiana state legislature openly defied Trump’s threats to cut off the state’s infrastructure funding unless they accepted the gerrymandering plan. It was a pretty remarkable act of defiance from state-level Republicans, and could indicate that Trump’s power to bully his own party into line is eroding.

Meanwhile, Democrats have been performing strongly in off-year elections:

Democrats were declared winners of the Miami mayor’s race for the first time in nearly 30 years, winning the race easily by 18 points. And…the party also flipped a Georgia state House district that Trump had carried by double digits last year…The results in Miami and Georgia were merely the latest in a series of ominous signs for the GOP’s electoral picture…Democrats also flipped the mayor’s race in suburban Roswell…Democrats…continue to over-perform in special elections by more than they ever have in the Trump era…when the districts have been somewhat competitive, the results have been strong for Democrats. This year they’ve flipped four state legislative seats that had favored Trump by double digits a year ago…Democrats have now flipped more of these seats in special elections than in any year since 2020, when they won back the presidency.

This presages a potential blue wave in the 2026 midterm elections, which is undoubtedly why Trump is so desperate to push through state-level gerrymandering plans.

These concerns were bolstered by a recent AP-NORC poll that had some very poor numbers for Trump, including on the economy and on immigration — the two main issues that Trump won on in 2024:

These developments do seem to reinforce the notion that Trump’s post-election honeymoon is over. But I wouldn’t be too quick to label him a lame duck, or to conclude that his power over the GOP is breaking.

Americans are grumbling, but not yet raging

First of all, the AP poll is just one poll. Overall, Trump’s approval rating has drifted downward, and he had a bad November, possibly because of the government shutdown. But since the shutdown ended, his approval has rebounded somewhat, and is still above 40% in the poll averages: