The following article by Kenneth T. Walsh was posted on the U.S. News and World Report website March 16, 2018:
Reactions in Pennsylvania and California show where the presidency stands.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP ventured outside Washington twice during the past week – once to a pro-Trump congressional district in western Pennsylvania and once to the anti-Trump venue of California, a state he lost by 4 million votes to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The reactions he got in each place served as a summary of where his presidency stands. He appears to be losing his grip on some of his once die-hard supporters because of policy flip-flops and erratic behavior. And he has yet to appeal to the many voters who can’t abide him and who are troubled by his bluster and his inconsistent but mostly conservative agenda.
Trump visited the Pittsburgh area Saturday hoping to give a boost to Republican candidate Rick Saccone in an 18th Congressional District special election against Democrat Conor Lamb. Lamb was ahead by a razor-thin margin on Tuesday and claimed victory, although a recount is possible. The outcome was considered a setback for Trump and fellow Republicans because Trump had won the district by 20 points in 2016 and thoroughly linked himself to Saccone.
Republican strategists argued that the loss wasn’t Trump’s fault because Saccone wasn’t as good a candidate as Lamb. Democrats rejoiced, arguing that the election was in some ways a referendum on Trump and the outcome signals that the Democrats are headed for big gains in the midterm elections this fall.
David Axelrod, former chief strategist for President Barack Obama, told CNN, “What we’ve seen is a consistent pattern of Democrats outperforming” expectations in various recent legislative and congressional elections. Axelrod said the Republicans spent millions of dollars attacking Lamb as out of touch with the district and attempting to tie him to unpopular Democrats in Washington, such as House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, but the strategy didn’t work.
David Nir, political director of the Daily Kos liberal web site, told reporters, “Republicans should have held this deep-red seat without a thought. Instead, Lamb completely erased Donald Trump’s 20-point win in this district” and the outcome “should fill Republicans with real dread about November.”
On Monday, Trump made his first trip as president to the mega state of California and it was a rough-and-tumble affair that showed how polarizing Trump can be. He stopped in the San Diego area to inspect prototypes for the border wall he has been advocating since his 2016 campaign. But there are many problems with the project, especially the question of where the funds will come from. Trump has long insisted that Mexico will pay, but Mexican officials refuse to allow it.
Trump also turned partisan, saying Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, “does a very poor job running California. They have the highest taxes in the United States. The place is totally out of control. You have ‘sanctuary cities’ where you have criminals living in the sanctuary cities.”
State Democratic leaders fired back. “It’s official,” said Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor, in an online video timed for Trump’s arrival. “Donald Trump finally worked up the nerve to visit California, bringing his fear-of-everything agenda with him. Let’s get real, Donald Trump’s border wall is a monument to idiocy. A 1,900-mile waste of taxpayer money that – news flash – is impossible to complete.” Governor Brown wrote on Twitter, “[B]ridges are still better than walls. And California remains the 6th largest economy in the world and the most prosperous state in America. #Facts.”
Trump arrived in California a week after his administration sued the state because of its immigration policy, arguing that California is too lenient. Trump strongly opposes California’s sanctuary rules in which certain cities have declared their premises safe havens for undocumented but otherwise law-abiding immigrants.
Overall, the lesson of the week is the pervasiveness of polarization. Trump remains a deeply divisive figure, either loved or hated, and this fact will dominate American politics for the foreseeable future.
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