Insider Advantage’s Matt Towery writes:
“An InsiderAdvantage national survey of 600 Republican registered voters indicates that a vast majority want their Republican Senators and Representatives to vote in unison to pass President Trump’s appointees and agenda. The survey, conducted January 20, has a margin of error of 4%.
Results:
What would you tell your Republican U.S. Senator or Congressman if you were to speak to them today?
“I want you to vote in unison to help pass President Trump’s appointees and his legislative agenda”: 70%
“I want you to vote however you like, even if it does not support President Trump’s nominees or his legislative agenda”: 19%
Undecided: 11%
InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt Towery: Every demographic in the poll favored support for Trump in unison. This pretty much tracks Republican primaries where candidates have openly challenged or have gone their separate way from the president. Most of those races don’t end well for those candidates, and with Trump at record high approval ratings, I expect the support for ‘in unison’ votes by Republican legislators to increase even more.”
This particular poll is critical to illustrating what voters can – and cannot – expect at this stage of the Trump presidency.
The historical fact is that new presidents, riding a wave of enthusiasm after their election and during their inauguration, face their greatest opportunity to get their programs and policies passed. As time passes, events happen and, inevitably enthusiasm and political support slowly drains away.
Lyndon Johnson would be a case in point. Succeeding the assassinated and martyred John F. Kennedy, LBJ’s dignified handling of the tragedy won hon him huge respect and affection. This respect and affection carried over into the 1964 election, in which he carried 44 states to GOP opponent Senator Barry Goldwater’s 6, receiving 61.1% of the popular vote to Goldwater’s 38.5%.
As a result, newly sworn in again in January of 1965 LBJ was able to get his massive “Great Society” programs of domestic reform passed overwhelmingly, giving rise to, among other things, his “War on Poverty” as well as other programs, many of which exist to this day.
But then.
Over time, partly due to the economics of his massive spending that resulted in serious inflation, and combined with his decision to send tens of thousands of American boys to fight the Vietnam War, LBJ saw his popularity – and therefore his ability to get things done – slowly disappear. In the 1966 congressional elections, LBJ’s Democrats got clobbered, waves of Republicans winning enough seats in the House and Senate to put an end to LBJ’s seemingly limitless passage of Great Society legislation.
By 1968 Johnson was so unpopular that he had to withdraw from his race for re-election, finding himself under serious challenge from Democrat Senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy.
All of which is the underlying moment the Insider Advantage poll captures when it records 70% of respondents agreeing with the statement:
“I want you to vote in unison to help pass President Trump’s appointees and his legislative agenda.”
Doubtless Donald Trump understands the point, which surely accounts for the flurry of executive orders he signed on his first day in office. He is at this moment, as the Insider Advantage poll illustrates, hugely popular.
In short: Now is the time for Trump to get his agenda into law, knowing full well that, as this poll illustrates, 70% of Americans support him doing just that.