Can you guess which? As Rick James almost said, partisanship is a hell of a drug.
Ironically, it may be the Republican numbers here that are most alarming to the White House. Democrats are a lost cause on Russiagate due to their own tribal partisan interests but there aren’t even 50 percent of GOPers who think the Don Jr meeting was copacetic. And meanwhile, independents are running negative by a margin of more than two to one.
YouGov asked in a separate question how much of a problem the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia is — very serious, somewhat serious, not very serious, and not a problem at all. The partisan break there is more familiar, with Dems splitting 81/9 between very and somewhat serious versus not very or not at all while Republicans split 13/77. Here too, though, independents are pointed against Trump at 43/30. I wish there were numbers from all of these questions taken a week before the Don Jr meeting became public to compare with the numbers now, just to see how much the revelations have moved the needle of public opinion. It’s the first hard evidence of intent to collude by someone who’s close to the president. It must have moved a few fencesitters. In particular, I’m curious how many Republicans moved from the “not at all a problem” column (currently 52 percent of GOPers) into the “not a very serious problem” (25 percent) one. Some must have. But, er, maybe not many:
The region, filled with rolling hills and woods near the Alabama border, is still proud of Trump, said Wayne County Republican Party Chairwoman Stephanie Pearson…
She applauded Donald Trump Jr. for releasing his emails about a meeting with a Russian attorney in the midst of the campaign against Clinton.
There’s very little that would change her mind about Trump.
“I don’t know what he would have to do … I guess maybe kill someone. Just in cold blood,” Pearson said.
The good news for Trump is that Russiagate remains a low priority even for Democrats. When YouGov asked people to name the two most important issues right now off a menu of 11 choices, the administration’s relationship with Russia finished tied for a very distant fifth at 12 percent. Number one with a bullet: Health care at 49 percent, followed by the economy at 37 percent. That holds true across all three partisan groups too. Among Democrats, more than three times as many people say health care is a top-two important issue (61 percent) than say so of Russiagate (20 percent). Among indies, health care and the economy are tied at 40 percent each versus just 12 percent who flag Russia while for Republicans the numbers are unsurprisingly poles apart — 46 percent say health care is top-tier important, 44 percent say the economy is, and just two percent say the White House’s relationship with Russia is. Smart Democrats know that TrumpCare is a much more potent midterm issue than Russiagate as things now stand unless evidence trickles out directly connecting the president to collusion. Exit question: Are they going to run a midterm campaign based on impeachment or based on health care? (Exit answer: It depends on how popular the GOP’s health-care program ends up being.)
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