GOP facing a 'triple crown of badness' as major deadline looms: expert

With Donald Trump’s approval rating hitting a historic low, longtime Beltway analyst John Heilemann told the hosts of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” that Republican Party lawmakers are being swamped by multiple problems with little time to convince voters they should be allowed to keep their jobs.

Using a horse-racing analogy, Heilemann told co-host Mike Brzezinski the outlook for Republicans in November is looking increasingly dire.

Citing a new Marist poll, he explained, “We now are seeing in this Marist poll a double-digit, congressional generic ballot margin between Republicans and Democrats. And again, if you were thinking about warning signs for a party in a midterm election, a president under with his approval rating in the 30s, a president with his disapproval rating, getting into the lower 60s and then a double-digit congressional generic ballot numbers, that is a triple crown of badness for the Republican Party.”

"As we head towards November — and something I've been saying all year long — but people, you know, talk about how long it is to to the midterms. They always say, ‘Well, we've got five more months, six more months.’ Memorial Day, guys, Memorial Day stuff gets locked in and it's hard to turn things around, especially when you have a party that's not legislating and has not been legislating very effectively for the whole of the last 15, 16 months.”

He added, “But the economic numbers and the perceptions of the economy are going to get locked in real quick, and they are very close to being entirely locked in. And I think the Republican Party, you know, once you turn the corner on Memorial Day, there is almost nothing that the party is going to be able to do to change a lot of these perceptions that have been accruing over the course of these last 15, 16 months, which again paints a very grim picture for Republicans in November.”

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