Stora tråden om amerikansk inrikespolitik

Although Trump has been known to attack pretty much anybody and this could just as soon blow over, the tweets suggest a looming showdown between Trump and his own party in Congress if it doesn’t deliver on his agenda to his satisfaction.

Congressional Republicans should be very worried. Trump could tear them apart — and he’s already starting to do so.

Case in point: A new George Washington University Battleground Poll released shortly before Trump’s tweets showed 53 percent of Republicans in districts with Republican members of Congress say their member has not been “supportive enough” of the president. Another 35 percent say their support has been “about right,” and just 4 percent — 1 in 25 Republicans — say their member has been “too supportive.”

In that way, Trump is already tilling fertile soil by attacking the likes of McConnell, Ryan and Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.). A strong majority of the GOP base thinks their party hasn’t done enough to help Trump, and now Trump is blasting that message far and wide.

That holds true for specific senators as well as the party. The limited polling we have on individual members suggest those who have tangled with Trump have paid a steep price in their personal image ratings.

A poll from Democratic-leaning automated pollster Public Policy Polling this month showed a grim state of affairs for Heller, who initially opposed the GOP health-care bill and drew Trump’s ire before eventually supporting a later version. The PPP poll showed him with a brutal 22 percent approval rating in Nevada, compared to 55 percent who disapproved.

Ditto the other vulnerable Republican senator up for reelection in 2018, Flake, who has been a more vocal Trump critic than Heller. Around the same time, PPP had him at just 18 percent approval in Arizona versus 62 percent disapproval. Again, brutal. The reason? Trump voters are almost completely deserting him, with just 22 percent approving of him and 63 percent disapproving.

PPP has also now released data on McConnell, whom Trump has been needling for weeks. And guess what? His ratings have plummeted thanks to Trump voters, too. Fully 66 percent of Trump voters say they disapprove of him, driving up his overall disapproval rating to 74 percent. Just 18 percent approve.

Goldman Sachs, in guidance to investors last Friday, pegged the odds at 50/50. This strikes us as high, but the dynamics are ominous:
A top Republican source put the chance as high as 75%: "The peculiar part is that almost everyone I talk to on the Hill agrees that it is more likely than not."

The biggest contributor to coal and nuclear plant retirements has been the advantaged economics of natural gas-fired generation,” the report, ordered by Energy Secretary Rick Perry earlier this year, flatly states.

“Production costs of coal and nuclear plants remained somewhat flat, while the new and existing, more flexible, and relatively lower-operating cost natural gas plants drove down wholesale market prices to the point that some formerly profitable nuclear and coal facilities began operating at a loss.”