Nate Silver's Blog, page 98

7 Rules For Reading Trump’s Approval Rating

It still isn’t entirely clear how much President Trump’s reaction to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — which was criticized by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers after he blamed “many sides” for the violence there — has affected his job approval rating. As of Wednesday evening, Trump’s approval rating was 36.9 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight average, down only slightly from 37.6 percent on the day before1 a counter-protester and two police officers were killed in Charlottesville. His disapproval rating was 56.8 percent, up only slightly from 56.3 percent before Charlottesville. So perhaps there’s been a little movement — but there hasn’t been the sort of unambiguous decline in Trump’s approval rating that occurred at earlier moments in his presidency, such as when Republicans began to debate their health care bill in March or after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May.

Approval ratings, of course, aren’t the only way to judge a president’s standing. The fact that Republicans in Congress have become much more openly defiant of Trump could spell trouble for him later on, whether or not rank-and-file voters were all that moved by Charlottesville. Nonetheless, approval ratings provide a reality check of sorts, as the media’s guesses about what will or won’t affect public opinion aren’t always accurate. So let me walk you through a few propositions for what I think we’ve learned about Trump’s approval through the first seven months of his presidency — and why his approval ratings’ modest response to Charlottesville shouldn’t have been all that surprising.

Proposition No. 1: It’s easy to fight to a draw when your approval rating is only 37 percent.

The public gave Trump poor grades for his response to Charlottesville. In a CBS News poll conducted last week, for example, 34 percent approved of his response, compared to 55 percent who disapproved of it. Those are poor marks in a country where partisanship means that public opinion on many issues is divided about evenly.

But a 34-55 approval-to-disapproval ratio is not all that different from Trump’s overall approval-disapproval rating. In fact, it’s pretty darn similar. Trump’s response to Charlottesville was quite unpopular, but he’s not a very popular guy to begin with, so it didn’t necessarily move a lot of voters.

Proposition No. 2: Be wary of claims that Trump has hit his approval rating ‘floor’ — so far, his numbers have been declining, not holding steady.

But let’s not lose sight of the big picture. Despite the relatively small shift after Charlottesville, the overall trend in Trump’s numbers so far has been toward decline. In fact, a simple linear trend line captures most of the variation in his approval ratings so far2 and implies that his approval ratings are dropping slightly more than 1 percentage point per month.3 If Trump were to continue losing ground at this rate — though he probably won’t (see below) — it would be truly catastrophic for him, as his numbers would fall into the low 20s by midterms.

That’s not to say the daily and weekly fluctuations in Trump’s approval ratings are noise, necessarily. Many of them reflect responses to real news events. Sometimes Trump’s rating will decline for a week or two after a negative news story and then partly recover. But if you repeatedly take one step forward and two steps back, you wind up losing a lot of ground over the long run.

Proposition No. 3: If Trump does have a floor, it’s probably in the 20s and not in the 30s.

Although predictions of a floor for Trump’s approval ratings haven’t matched the evidence all that well so far, there are sound theoretical reasons to think that his numbers will be increasingly resistant to downward movement. I’ve already mentioned the most important of these: Partisanship is a strong force in American politics and will protect Trump to some extent. And Trump’s ratings are already fairly low to begin with, with roughly three Americans disapproving of Trump’s performance for every two who approve of him — so he doesn’t have all that many more voters to turn off.

Still, if you’re looking to estimate when Trump really might hit a floor, somewhere in the low-to-mid-20s is a pretty good guess. There’s quite a bit of evidence that points in this direction:

The lowest approval ratings achieved by past presidents are in the low-to-mid-20s. Richard Nixon was at 25 percent at the time of his resignation, for instance, while George W. Bush and Harry Truman bottomed out at 24 percent and 22 percent, respectively, late in their second terms.
Trump won 23 percent of everyone, regardless of party, who cast a vote in the Democratic or Republican primaries last year. Those are the people who were truly with him from the start.
A recent Monmouth University poll found that 61 percent of Trump supporters said they’d never change their minds about him. That works out to about 23 percent of the country overall.4
About 20 percent of voters say they strongly approve of Trump.

Proposition No. 4: Expect bigger approval rating changes from issues that cut across partisan lines.

As I mentioned, the clearest declines in Trump’s approval ratings came after he fired Comey and at moments related to the health care bill — first in March when the GOP began to debate its proposal, and then more recently following the collapse of the bill late last month.

Each of these issues cut across partisan lines in awkward ways. Republicans, including Trump, had praised Comey following his letter to Congress last October, in which he disclosed that the FBI was investigating further emails that could be pertinent to Hillary Clinton’s email server,5 and Comey had been a Republican for most of his life. The White House’s initial rationalization for firing Comey — which criticized him for speaking out so publicly about the Clinton case — didn’t make a lot of sense. That’s not to say that reaction to the firing didn’t polarize itself along partisan lines — it eventually did. But the firing had to produce at least a little bit of cognitive dissonance for voters.

The various versions of the GOP health care bill, meanwhile, were oddly designed hybrids that didn’t give Republican voters a lot of reason to get on board. The House and Senate plans neither fully repealed Obamacare (as Republicans had promised to do since 2010), nor did they replace it with the sort of health care program that Trump had promised to voters. And the GOP bills would especially have hurt lower-income, older voters in rural areas — exactly the sort of people who were most inclined to vote for Trump last year.

Reactions to Charlottesville followed a more predictably partisan course, by contrast. For better or worse, views on racial equality — which groups are advantaged and which are discriminated against — now strongly divide voters between the parties. And Trump has attempted to pivot the Charlottesville discussion into one about Confederate statues, which also provoke a highly partisan response.

Proposition No. 5: Be especially wary of expecting big changes in Trump’s approval rating from ‘cultural’ issues.

This follows from the previous conclusion about partisan polarization. Issues related to race, gender, sexuality, religion and social class have long been an animating force in American politics, of course. But they’ve come back in an especially strong way in the Trump era, so much so that views on these questions tend to be stronger markers of support for Trump than views on economic and policy issues.

So it’s not that issues like the ones raised by the events in Charlottesville are unimportant to Americans. It’s that they’re already “priced in” to voters’ overall political orientations and assessments of Trump. When new controversies crop up along similar lines, they may not affect voter preferences very much.

Proposition No. 6: Expect bigger changes when Trump’s behavior is truly surprising or defies promises he made to voters.

Speaking of “priced in,” Trump’s approval rating hasn’t been affected much when he does something, however controversial, that’s consistent with his previous behavior. If Trump’s equivocal stance toward white supremacists after Charlottesville was surprising to the media, it was perhaps less so to voters given that Trump had been slow to denounce groups such as the KKK as a candidate last year and that his rhetoric had often been racially tinged. In a poll conducted last August, 51 percent of voters described Trump as “racist.”

By contrast, the Republican health care bill was inconsistent with the promises that Trump had made to voters on the campaign trail. And Trump had also repeatedly promised to repeal and replace Obamacare, which he hasn’t been able to do yet. It’s not surprising, therefore, that health care hurt his numbers more than Charlottesville. By this rule, an economic downturn could be especially harmful to Trump given that he made very aggressive promises to voters about job creation.

Proposition No. 7: Trump’s approval rating could change a lot before the midterms — and certainly before 2020.

So there — it sounds like we’ve got all these rules about Trump’s approval rating down pat, which must mean we can pretty much know what to expect from here on out. Well, maybe not, because history suggests that presidential approval ratings follow a fairly unpredictable course:

Approval ratings aren’t that predictable

Via the FiveThirtyEight approval tracker

FIRST-TERM APPROVAL RATING


PRESIDENT
AFTER 216 DAYS
AT MIDTERM
AT NEXT PRES. ELECTION




Trump
37%
—
—


Obama
52
45%
50%


G. W. Bush
53
62
48


Clinton
44
47
55


G. H.W. Bush
69
55
33


Reagan
60
42
58


Carter
65
49
38


Ford
37
—
44


Nixon
62
57
61


Johnson
74
—
74


Kennedy
75
62
—


Eisenhower
74
62
68


Truman
75
33
40

Gerald Ford faced a midterm election after less than 216 days in office. Kennedy was assassinated before he had an opportunity to be re-elected. Lyndon Johnson became president after Kennedy’s midterm.

Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, who didn’t win re-election, were considerably more popular at this point in their terms than Barack Obama, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush, who did. Ronald Reagan was quite popular at this point at this term, but his job approval rating plummeted in advance of the 1982 midterm election — only to recover again, allowing him to win a landslide re-election in 1984. Presidential approval ratings shift by a median of 13 percentage points between this point in their terms and the midterm elections — which means that if he’s at 37 percent now, Trump could very easily be at 50 percent in November of 2018 — or at 24 percent.

And while there are a couple rules of thumb for how presidential approval ratings behave over the long run, they’re contradictory in Trump’s case. On the one hand, approval ratings tend to decline over the course of a president’s term, which would predict a further decrease for Trump. On the other hand — in part because of partisanship — approval ratings are mean-reverting, meaning that they tend to rise when they’re lower than roughly 40 percent and to decline when they’re above 50 percent, which would tend to produce an increase since Trump’s ratings are below 40 percent now.

So far, the first rule — a president’s rating tends to get worse during his term — has usually won out for Trump, and his approval rating has continued to decline. But the first rule won’t necessarily keep winning the tug-of-war with the second rule. Partisan gravity could pull Trump’s numbers back into the low 40s if he has a couple of relatively calm weeks or months — as he did this April, for example. Or an issue that Americans aren’t thinking about very much now — say, a military confrontation with North Korea — could be pivotal in the 2018 and 2020 elections. The best news for Trump is that there’s a long way to go before voters go to the polls again.

Trump’s Reluctant Voters Are Getting More Reluctant

In this week’s politics chat, we check back in on the voters who helped put Donald Trump over the top in 2016 and may prove crucial in 2018 and 2020. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): It’s time for our weekly politics chat! Welcome, all. Today we’re going to do something a little different and — particularly after Trump’s speech in Arizona on Tuesday night, which seemed squarely aimed at pleasing his most devoted supporters — use this chat to talk about “reluctant Trump voters” and how they’re feeling about the administration in lieu of his Arizona speech but also in the wake of Charlottesville and Steve Bannon’s departure.

Clare, you’ve been writing about this group, wanna give us a definition?

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Well, they’re generally white, middle-aged, relatively well-educated, less “brand loyal” to the Republican Party, and they didn’t vote for President Trump enthusiastically. They were “not excited” to cast their ballot for him in November.

micah: Perfect … so we just got a new batch of data from SurveyMonkey on how this group is feeling. They polled 3,227 adults between Aug. 18 and Aug. 21. I’m gonna throw results at you all, and we’ll talk about them one-by-one.

Is the U.S. headed in the right direction or wrong direction?





AMONG TRUMP VOTERS WHO WERE …




EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP

NOT EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP




Right direction
61%

–

37%

–



Wrong direction
36

–

60

–



No answer
3

–

3

–

Among 3,227 adults interviewed Aug. 18-21, 2017

Source: SurveyMonkey

That’s a pretty huge difference. What do you make of it?

clare.malone: Trump could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, and some of his people would still love him.

I mean, what we can take from those numbers is that the reluctant Trump people are more likely to have voted for Trump because he WASN’T Hillary Clinton, and they were hoping that they would see some results — a course change. Given that this administration has very few legislative accomplishments to its name and some serious organizational problems, it makes sense that these unenthused voters are worried.

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): Well, I’m not the biggest fan of the “right direction, wrong direction” question myself. I don’t know what it really tells us. But it’s interesting that just 30 percent of the overall sample said the country was going in the right direction. That means the reluctant Trump sample’s views were far closer to the average voter’s than the average enthusiastic Trump voter.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): I agree with Clare. You wouldn’t expect people who voted for Trump only as a last resort to be especially happy about the state of the country. But I also agree with Harry that I’m not quite sure how the “right direction” numbers translate into voting behavior.

harry: We all agree. Hugs to all :slightly_smiling_face:.

micah: Boring!

harry: There’s nothing boring about love …

micah: Next …

Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Trump is handling his job?





AMONG TRUMP VOTERS WHO WERE …




EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP

NOT EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP




Approve
95%

–

63%

–



Disapprove
4

–

37

–

A 3,227 adults interviewed Aug. 18-21, 2017

Source: SurveyMonkey

harry: More enthused Trump voters feel about the same as they did last time we tested that in early June, but the percentage of reluctant Trump voters who approve of the president’s job is down 11 percentage points, from 74 percent before. That’s a fairly substantial slide.

natesilver: And that sorta cuts against the talking point that there’s nothing Trump can do to alienate the people who voted for him. In fact, the numbers are a bit worse than they appear on the surface. Among reluctant supporters, only 6 percent strongly approve of Trump. A higher percentage, 14 percent, strongly disapprove of his performance.

harry: And that 6 percent who strongly approve is well down from 15 percent in June.

clare.malone: And we should note that this survey was fielded entirely in the aftermath of Charlottesville (but obviously before Trump’s Arizona speech).

micah: Can Trump win re-election with the reluctant Group this lukewarm on him?

harry: I mean … it depends who runs against him.

natesilver: Lukewarmness won’t necessarily translate into an unwillingness to vote for Trump. Whoever the 2020 Democratic candidate is will be demonized by Trump, and Republicans voters’ partisan instincts will kick in.

With that said, Trump won, in part, because a lot of people who disliked both Clinton and Trump were willing to take a chance on him. That dynamic is unlikely to prevail next time around.

harry: Well, hold on, how conservative are they? A majority (53 percent) say they are conservative, but that’s far less than other, more enthused Trump voters (72 percent).

clare.malone: But it’s difficult to imagine a Democratic candidate who would lure them away.

micah: It is, yeah … but let’s come back to that question in one minute …

How likely do you think it is that President Trump will run for re-election in 2020?





AMONG TRUMP VOTERS WHO WERE …




EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP

NOT EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP




Very likely
61%

–

25%

–



Somewhat likely
27

–

33

–



Not very likely
9

–

27

–



Not likely at all
2

–

12

–



No answer
1

–

2

–

Survey of 3,227 adults interviewed Aug. 18-21, 2017

Source: SurveyMonkey

clare.malone: So, what is the point of that question? I ask that sincerely.

Why do we ask voters to pundit-ize? Why not just skip straight to the, “Are you gonna vote for him?”

natesilver: I’ve noticed an uptick in what I might call wishful thinking lately — among both Democrats and reluctant Republicans — about Trump suddenly deciding to resign. It seems like it’s sort of a coping mechanism for people who feel there has to be some sort of end point or some sort of consequence for Trump’s behavior.

micah: Speaking of …

If the 2020 election were held today, would you …





AMONG TRUMP VOTERS WHO WERE …




EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP

NOT EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP




Definitely vote to re-elect Trump
63%

–

12%

–



Probably vote to re-elect Trump
28

–

36

–



Probably vote for someone else
5

–

25

–



Definitely vote for someone else
3

–

20

–



Would not vote
1

–

5

–



No answer
0

2

–

Among 3,227 adults interviewed Aug. 18-21, 2017

Source: SurveyMonkey

clare.malone: So 45 percent are leaning toward not voting for him and not voting. That’s something!

natesilver: So … I’m not a huge fan of matching someone up against a hypothetical or unnamed opponent. I’d rather just look at their approval rating.

harry: Tell us why, Mr. Silver?

natesilver: Because a voter can imagine the “someone else” of his or her dreams — a John Kasich for some, a Marco Rubio for others, a Mike Pence for a few, or a Michael Bloomberg even.

Or I guess if this question is asking about the general election — to return to Clare’s question about what kind of Democrat could lure these voters away — a moderate Democrat (Joe Manchin?)

That same voter might not vote for Kamala Harris or someone, though.

clare.malone: You think it’s fan fic for voters?

Makes sense.

harry: And in this particular case, the vote to re-elect percentage is smaller than the approval. That’s for both reluctant Trump voters and excited Trump voters.

micah: Wait, what’s that mean, Harry?

harry: I’m saying that more of Trump’s 2016 voters approve of Trump than want to vote for him again. That backs up Nate’s point that maybe they’re thinking of their dream candidate.

micah: Ah, got it.

OK, one more 2020 question and then we’ll talk a bit about Bannon …

If President Trump resigns or is removed from office, would Mike Pence be …





AMONG TRUMP VOTERS WHO WERE …




EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP

NOT EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP




A better president than Trump
23%

–

70%

–



A worse president than Trump
16

–

8

–



No different than President Trump
57

–

17

–



No answer
4

–

5

–

Among 3,227 adults interviewed Aug. 18-21, 2017

Source: SurveyMonkey

micah: I mean, you really see what these reluctant Trump voters want in that question, right?

harry: The other noteworthy thing to me here is that even among excited Trump voters, more respondents think Pence would be better than worse.

natesilver: There was a separate question that asked about their views on Pence, and his favorable rating among reluctant Trump voters was 61 percent — which is not that great, really. By comparison, Pence’s favorable rating was 84 percent among non-reluctant Trump supporters.

But the reluctant Trump supporters pretty clearly prefer a generic Republican to Trump.

micah: Is Pence a generic Republican?

natesilver: Yeah, he’s generic as hell, tbh.

clare.malone: Well, Micah, I’m so glad you asked. I wrote about a potential Mike Pence presidency — he’s pretty darn socially and fiscally conservative (he was a tea partier long before we had the term “tea party”). But he’s more likely to do the sorts of things that a generic Republican would want to do in office — i.e., he would be a more conventional leader than Trump, which might be the longing we’re seeing for him from those reluctant Trumpers.

natesilver: Pence is shielded in some ways in that he’s sort of a bit player right now — I’m not sure what role he’s playing behind the scenes, but he isn’t making a lot of headlines. That will change if President Pence — or presidential candidate Pence — becomes a thing.

harry: One of the reasons Trump did well in the North and Midwest is that he wasn’t a big-time social conservative. I do wonder what percentage of people who like Pence now wouldn’t after it became clear how socially conservative he is.

natesilver: The bigger question is still whether those reluctant voters would go for a Democrat over Trump.

micah: Or for Kasich’s independent bid and/or primary challenge?

natesilver: With that, I want to repeat the statistic one more time that voters who disliked both Trump and Clinton went for Trump 47-30, according to the exit poll.

That was worth a net of about 3 percentage points for Trump. If voters who disliked both candidates had split evenly, he’d have lost the popular vote by 5 points (rather than 2 points) and the Electoral College by a decent margin.

clare.malone: I kinda think 2020 is ripe for #RossPerotREDUX.

harry: Maybe we can get Perot to run again. He’ll only be 90.

micah: OK, last part of the chat …

There were a couple of questions in the SurveyMonkey poll about Bannon’s departure … Here’s one:

Will Steve Bannon’s departure leave the Trump administration …





AMONG TRUMP VOTERS WHO WERE …




EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP

NOT EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP




Better off
37%

–

26%

–



Worse off
7

–

10

–



No different
53

–

59

–



No answer
3

–

6

–

Among 3,227 adults interviewed Aug. 18-21, 2017

Source: SurveyMonkey

What do you make of those numbers?

harry: Nothing really. I mean the lack of a divide between the excited and not-excited Trump voters is interesting.

clare.malone: It seems like the American people didn’t buy into the narrative of Bannon as shadow president so they think Trump is still the one behind the administration’s moves — for better or for worse. And I guess Steve Bannon the man doesn’t have a base … which I’m not sure we ever thought he did.

natesilver: I think the excited Trump voters are so loyal to the president that they take everything he does in the best light. Which seems to outweigh the fact that the reluctant voters are more moderate and less Bannon-ish.

clare.malone: Bannon’s website, Breitbart, is more powerful, has its own base of sorts.

natesilver: Still, 16 percent of the reluctant Trump voters described themselves as “very conservative” in the SurveyMonkey poll. That’s less than the 42 percent who described themselves as moderate. But there are some Republicans who oppose Trump from the right.

micah: This is a case where Trump voters seem to have a more realistic view of the impact of Bannon leaving than the media.

Last one:

How much influence has Steve Bannon had on the Trump administration?





AMONG TRUMP VOTERS WHO WERE …




EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP

NOT EXCITED TO VOTE TRUMP




Too much influence
22%

–

31

–



Right amount of influence
49

–

25

–



Not enough influence
21

–

35

–



No answer
8

–

10

–

Among 3,227 adults interviewed Aug. 18-21, 2017

Source: SurveyMonkey

harry: What I find interesting here is that the non-excited Trump supporters are more likely to say both that Bannon had “too much” and “not enough” influence on Trump than they are to say he had the “right amount.”

clare.malone: Yeahhhh. Do you think that’s immigration polarizing people?

harry: I’m sure some of them are the people who don’t like Trump because he wasn’t moderate enough, while others just want someone, anyone, to make Trump change his behavior.

micah: OK, to close us out here: What’s your main takeaway from this data? Where does Trump stand with the “reluctant Trump” group?

harry: He’s doing worse than he was doing two months ago, based on the approval question. That could have a big effect on the midterms.

clare.malone: Trump’s disorderly conduct in the White House — rhetorically and organizationally — is making people nervous who didn’t really want to vote for him in the first place.

natesilver: My takeaway is that there should be more focus on these voters and less on people who will stay with Trump no matter what. They’re both more interesting unto themselves (in that their views of Trump are fairly nuanced/layered) and more important to Trump’s long-term success.

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This week on the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast: How did President Trump’s rhetoric on white supremacist rallies shift from “many sides” to the specific issue of Confederate monuments? The team discusses what Confederate monuments mean to Americans and why we’re talking about them in the first place, with Vincent Hutchings of the University of Michigan.

Plus: What is the generic ballot and what can it tell us about our political future?

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

Trump’s Populism Isn’t Popular — But That’s On Him, Not Bannon

What if upon taking office in January, President Trump had carefully balanced the insurgent influence of Steve Bannon, his chief strategist (now gone), with the establishment-friendly approach of Reince Priebus, his chief of staff (now gone) — and governed as a kinder, gentler, more media-savvy populist?

It wasn’t so long ago that such an outcome seemed possible. In January, The Atlantic’s David Frum envisioned a scenario in which Trump passed a truly populist program of “big tax cuts, big spending, and big deficits,” along with “restrictive immigration policies.” Such an agenda would prove fairly popular, Frum imagined, leading to Trump’s easy re-election in 2020. Trump would continue to push everyone’s boundaries but would also pick his battles somewhat carefully; there might be a border wall,1 for instance, but there would be no mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Instead, almost the exact opposite has occurred. Trump has maintained most of populism’s rough edges — including its tendency to inflame racial resentment, as was evidenced by his comments on the Charlottesville white supremacist rally earlier this week. But he’s adopted few of the policies that actually make populism popular — or, at least, made it popular enough for Trump to win the Electoral College.

This isn’t Bannon’s fault — it’s Trump’s.

Take the various iterations of the Republican health care bill, which Bannon was reportedly lukewarm about. It proposed massive cuts to Medicaid spending and would greatly have reduced subsidies for older, poorer Americans — exactly the people who helped propel Trump to victory in November. And it would have done all of this partly to finance tax cuts that primarily benefited the wealthy. It was one of the least populist bills that one can imagine. And it cost Trump politically; his approval rating fell significantly while the bill was first being debated in March and then again after it finally failed to pass the Senate last month.

Or take Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey. There was nothing especially populist about the Comey firing, which put Trump — who campaigned as a “law and order” president — at odds with the intelligence community. And like health care, it’s brought nothing but trouble for him, having led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller and having further hurt Trump’s popularity rating. But it wasn’t Bannon’s doing; he reportedly opposed the firing. Instead, more establishment-friendly figures such as Jared Kushner had reportedly advocated for canning Comey.

But when Bannon prevailed and won internal arguments against Kushner or Priebus or new chief of staff John Kelly, it didn’t turn out all that well for Trump, either. The “travel ban” that Trump implemented at Bannon’s urging in January wasn’t all that unpopular, but its implementation was a mess, leading it to be repeatedly struck down by the courts until the Supreme Court finally allowed a narrow version of it in June. Trump’s Charlottesville response, which was reportedly cheered on by Bannon, has also been a disaster, producing a major backlash from the business community and from establishment Republicans.

The overall result is a president who has yet to sign any major legislation into law — and who has a much greater base of opposition than a base of support. (As of earlier this month, 47 percent of Americans strongly disapproved of Trump’s job performance, while just 20 percent strongly approved of it.) That could make it hard for Trump to “pivot”; he may have alienated too many voters to expand his support, but his base isn’t all that large either.

Related:

It’s easy to imagine how things theoretically could turn out better for Trump in the aftermath of Bannon’s firing. Trump could use the firing as an excuse to turn the page on Charlottesville, for example, or to repair relations, with Kelly’s help, with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

But Trump has more often gotten the worst of all possible worlds. He could wind up with Bannon as a dangerous outside antagonist who knows many of the White House’s secrets, for example, while elevating Kushner — who seems to have consistently given Trump bad advice — into a position of greater influence. And Trump’s most self-destructive impulses aren’t likely to be affected one way or another because they come not from Bannon or Kushner or Kelly but from Trump himself.

What Kind Of Republican Might Challenge Trump In 2020?

In this week’s politics chat, we sift through recent reports of Republicans gearing up to challenge President Trump in 2020. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): A bout of 2020 speculation flared up over the last few days after The New York Times reported that a bunch of Republican officials “have begun what amounts to a shadow campaign for 2020 — as if the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue weren’t involved.”

Of course, we need little excuse to talk about 2020, so our question for today: Will someone challenge President Trump for the GOP nomination in 2020?

Let’s talk first about why there’s all this discussion of someone challenging Trump, and then we can go through the potential challengers.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): I like your use of “flared up,” as though it’s arthritis or something.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): There’s “Trump challenger” talk because Trump associates are under investigation and there’s fear of impeachment or loss of effectiveness. It’s pretty simple.

micah: OK, so all this talk is because Trump is weak? (In other words, this isn’t what normally happens?)

clare.malone: This is not what normally happens. We live in extraordinary times.

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): Yeah, Trump doesn’t seem like he controls his party (see: health care), his approval rating overall is south of 40 percent and he’s still the guy who won less than 50 percent of the 2016 Republican primary vote.

natesilver: Nobody actually answered Micah’s original question! Yes, someone will probably challenge Trump for the 2020 nomination, assuming he seeks the 2020 nomination. The question will be whether it’s a “serious” challenge.

micah: “Serious” was implied, Nate.

natesilver: Is John Kasich serious?

micah: Yes.

clare.malone: Well, he’s serious about it. It depends if other people will take him seriously.

natesilver: But he’s … probably not going to win going after Trump from the left.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): Kasich was a terrible candidate in 2016. He won one state: Ohio.

clare.malone: Nate LOVED Kasich.

micah: He’d still be a serious challenger.

perry: In the sense of his strong resume (having served as a House member and governor) or in the sense that he could actually beat Trump?

micah: His resume, he’d command significant media attention, he’d win a meaningful share of votes, etc. I don’t think being likely to actually win is the bar for “seriousness.”

natesilver: Oooohhh … “significant media attention.” I’m sure Trump is quaking in his boots.

clare.malone: Kasich would be a serious challenger if he lined up “serious conservatives” still in the GOP conversation to support him.

natesilver: The fact that I loved Kasich is all you need to know about why he couldn’t win a GOP primary. (I don’t actually love Kasich, other than his eating habits.)

What would his plan be?

Appear on “Morning Joe.”
???
WIN GOP NOMINATION

harry: Let me ask a question: Was Pat Buchanan a serious candidate in 1992, when he challenged incumbent President George H.W. Bush for the GOP nomination?

perry: Good question, Harry.

micah: Yeah, Buchanan was serious. Maybe that’s our standard — the Buchanan bar.

perry: Buchanan was a sign of George H.W. Bush’s political weakness , but he had little chance of winning the nomination. (Buchanan did not win a single state in 1992.)

micah: OK, so let’s take Nate’s trolling seriously: Will Trump get a serious challenger in 2020? (However you want to define that.)

clare.malone: Yes, I think so.

micah: Put your money where your mouth is, Nate.

perry: This is totally dependent on what we learn about the various Russia controversies. Is that a cop-out?

micah: YES!

natesilver: If you consider Kasich “serious,” then Trump will get a “serious” challenge, more likely than not. Give that there’s a huge opportunity for Kasich or someone Kasich-like to grandstand, I can’t believe nobody would take that opportunity. “Serious” doesn’t necessarily mean someone can win, though.

clare.malone: People smell weakness. And there’s a faction of big GOP donors who are hungry to support a serious non-Trump candidate.

micah: +1

clare.malone: I.e., the Koch brothers — they were not into Trump. They could mount a real uprising if they so chose.

perry: I like the idea of a Koch-backed challenger. That would be serious. Kasich is not that challenger. I don’t think the Koch groups like him.

clare.malone: Who would the Kochs choose?

perry: Someone like Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator who visited Iowa earlier this year and who you could imagine running for president down the line.

clare.malone: Yeah.

perry: If he were willing to run.

clare.malone: We need to think conservative.

micah: Ben Sasse?

clare.malone: No. I don’t think so.

micah: Too pure?

clare.malone: They would choose other people above him.

natesilver: Maybe they’d pick MIKE PENCE.

PENCE vs. TRUMP!!!

harry: Let’s think through this logically. In 2012, a much-more-popular-than-Trump Barack Obama was held to less than 60 percent of the vote in a number of Appalachian primaries. Trump could have some problems in New England (which includes New Hampshire), where his approval rating among Republicans and independents is lower than it is nationally. That could sway someone like a Kasich to run. That doesn’t mean he will, but I think it’s plausible.

For all this talk of a very conservative challenge, keep in mind that Trump’s approval rating with that group is sky-high. Well, it is for now, anyway.

natesilver: I’m not sure I’d say it’s “sky-high.” It’s trees-high, maybe, or tall-building-high.

But it’s no longer sky-high. The recent downtick in his approval rating includes some erosion among Republicans and conservatives.

The Kasich challenge would be motivated more by the desire to stand up for the traditional values of the Republican Party — which Trump violates in many ways — and/or to sell books.

perry: Bingo! Kasich sounds like a symbolic candidate, someone who can air all the grievances that D.C. and NYC Republicans have with Trump. But he doesn’t really sound like someone who would win.

micah: OK, so let me jump back to Perry’s question about whether this all comes down to Russia. How much do the chances of a serious Trump challenger in 2020 depend on the Russia investigation vs. his low approval rating? Like, we’re talking about two eventualities here, right? 1. Trump is removed from office and therefore doesn’t run in 2020, and 2. Trump is still in office and still on the ballot.

I think it’s more interesting to talk about Republicans challenging Trump in the second scenario, right?

In No. 1, of course someone else runs.

perry: Yeah, the second scenario is what we are really talking about. Obviously if Trump is removed from office, Pence runs and so do lot of other people. Maybe even Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio again.

micah: So, let’s talk about if Trump is still on the ballot: Who would run in that case and would they have a chance?

clare.malone: Trump enemies, and only if they were well-funded.

natesilver: I wanna talk about the other scenario too, though.

micah: WE WILL!

natesilver: You could have a Mike Lee type run.

clare.malone: Yeah.

micah: Kasich.

Sasse.

natesilver: Lee, Kasich and Trump, or something like that, yeah.

perry: Morning Joe-style candidates would run if Trump is on the ballot. Kasich, maybe Sasse, maybe Morning Joe himself! People who are essentially running to Trump’s left.

harry: We’re basically recreating the 2016 primary.

micah: Oh god, how great would it be if Joe Scarborough ran?

clare.malone: Any governors? A conservative governor would be interesting.

micah: Chris Christie?

clare.malone: Stop.

perry: If I’m a real conservative, like Lee or Cotton or Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, why annoy the base by running against Trump now when I can run later, when my party doesn’t already control the White House?

clare.malone: Abbott definitely has ambitions. Definitely very conservative.

I could see him doing it if Russia gets bad.

natesilver: I mentioned Lee earlier because I don’t think he has as much opportunity cost. He’s not a potential A-lister, I don’t think, in the way that Abbott might be, for example.

So he has less to lose by blowing this opportunity and more to gain by raising his profile.

perry: Pence is not exactly scary to other potential GOP presidential candidates, since he’s the heir apparent in a post-Trump GOP. Whenever Trump is no longer the GOP’s presumed presidential candidate, lots of people will be running and they will not be that worried if Pence is also running.

natesilver: BTW, there are also in-between cases where Trump starts off by running and then drops out at some point along the way, a la LBJ in 1968. So there’s some incentive to be in the field in case that happens.

micah: So, I guess, here’s my main question with the scenario where Trump is still on the ballot: Which is more likely to succeed, a challenge from the right (Trump isn’t governing as a conservative) or a challenge from the sorta-left (Trump is a loose cannon and is degrading American institutions).

clare.malone: The “Trump isn’t governing as a conservative” message could win over some of the, say, Iowa activist types who are important.

harry: A challenge from the left makes more sense given where Trump is strong in the polling. Show me a poll where his approval rating among very conservative Republicans is under 90 percent.

natesilver: You probably ought to show us a poll, Harry, to prove your point. In the polls I’ve seen, Trump’s approval among strong conservatives is high, but a lot of it has moved from “strong” to “somewhat” support.

There’s also a nontrivial chance that Trump tries to “pivot” in a more moderate direction before 2020.

harry: You can see on Ipsos that Trump’s approval rating among very conservative Republicans is at 90 percent or above pretty consistently.

natesilver: Lol, way to cherry-pick, Harry. 110 respondents!

harry: You know better than most, Mr. Silver, that you can add up the days and you get a larger sample size.

natesilver: But you know better than most that adding both “very conservative” and “Republican” to the list is sort of cheating. Not all Republicans ID as “very conservative” and not all “very conservatives” ID as Republican.

harry: Obviously. But what I’m saying is that his numbers are far weaker on the left than the right of the party.

perry: OK. Harry is saying something I had not really considered. Basically, re-run the Rubio/Jeb Bush campaign (a conservative candidate who’s not really populist and not as anti-immigration as Trump) but with a better candidate than either of those two. Now that Trump has had some time in office and has been ineffective as president, maybe voters are not as amenable to backing him. A Rubio/Bush type could aim to run as the candidate for college-educated Republicans and hope to get all of them to vote for him or her, along with all of the more moderate Republicans.

clare.malone: Like, the Rubio college-educated suburban types?

natesilver: Clare, I’m not convinced there are enough Rubio-type voters for a Rubio-type candidate to have an easy path to victory.

clare.malone: The pull of the party is to the right.

natesilver: Maybe that changes in eight years if the GOP thinks that Trump has been a disaster. I’m not sure it’s gonna change in four years.

micah: I don’t know. I’m tempted to say that only a conservative challenge against Trump can work, but Trump isn’t even a conservative and he won.

clare.malone: Well, I think you get someone who hammers home many of the same messages Trump that does, but who’s more … respected? Or who acts in a more conventional way.

micah: Yeah, maybe a Trump platform in more conventional packaging would work against Trump.

But the bottom line here seems to be that if Trump is on the ballot, we think someone would need to come at him from the right to have any chance?

natesilver: It’s easier to imagine someone (Lee?) catching fire in Iowa and winning the nomination than someone (Kasich?) catching fire in New Hampshire and doing so. (Although neither is very likely.)

clare.malone: What if Jeff Flake ran?

micah: To promote his book?

clare.malone: Hah. No, I’m kinda serious. He’s more in the mix than Kasich. Like, in the real world, not the Kasich-manufactured world.

perry: I see Flake as akin to Kasich and Sasse: essentially running from the left against Trump. Yes, I know Flake is conservative, but Flake almost sounds like a Democrat on immigration, He was part of the Senate “Gang of Eight” that tried to pass a bill creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

natesilver: I don’t think Flake has built up enough goodwill with Republicans. Same with Sasse. They haven’t been around long enough.

clare.malone: And yet everyone here is mentioning Sasse!

perry: So I think a Trump challenge, to actually defeat Trump, must come from the conservative part of the party, not the moderate end. What Micah said. But a moderate challenger (like Kasich) would still be annoying for Trump. And it wouldn’t be a good omen for Trump in terms of his chances of winning the general election

harry: Let me note a few things here:

There’s a difference between where there’s a better chance of a “serious” challenger and someone who can ultimately win. The former to me is from the left. The latter is from the right.
I’m not sure thinking about this as a left-right issue is necessarily helpful if we’re talking about who takes down Trump. If someone winds up doing that, they would be able to unite moderate well-educated voters with very conservative voters. I don’t know who that is. But the challenge may take place on an ideological plane that is different from the left-right spectrum. Who is that candidate?

micah: Next, let’s talk about a world in which Trump is not on the ballot.

Who runs in that world?

clare.malone: Everyone.

perry: This was my problem with the New York Times story over the weekend that launched this 2020 GOP speculation. I’m pretty sure Pence is running only if Trump is not running. That is not shocking and maybe should have been covered less breathlessly.

micah: Yeah, it doesn’t even seem disloyal.

natesilver: Yeah, I’m not sure if the Times story contained much news that would cause me to update my priors. It sounds like everyone, Pence especially, is behaving about like you might expect them to. A lot of the campaign-y stuff that Pence does is part of his job anyway.

clare.malone: Yeah, though let’s be real — his PAC, etc. goes above and beyond the call of first-term VP duty.

It’s a clever cover, and I think he should get points for that!

natesilver: Well, “behaving about like you might expect them to” is different for a Trump presidency than it would be for a normal presidency — and especially a Trump presidency where his approval rating is 37 percent and he has a tangible risk of impeachment.

Republicans are hedging their bets to some degree, and they’re rational to do so. I just don’t think there’s anything especially surreptitious going on.

perry: Otherwise, if Trump isn’t on the ballot, I would think that Cruz and Rubio might give it a look. Cotton has been to Iowa. Abbott is pushing a Trump-like agenda in Texas. He would be a logical fit. Doug Ducey, the governor of Arizona, is making the rounds.

micah: So here’s my thing: In a world where Trump is not on the ballot, that means something really politically damaging has happened; in that case, would Pence (Trump’s VP) really be the person Republicans turn to to save them?

clare.malone: If he kept his nose clean during the scandal(s), Pence might still have a chance. But I do think a scandal opens up the field a lot more.

harry: Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic nomination in 1968 as LBJ’s vice president after LBJ declined to run — though that was under a different system.

natesilver: I’d short Pence under those conditions, even though he might be a pretty good GOP nominee (he appeals to lots of different factions of the party) under ordinary circumstances.

perry: Pence is the logical choice if Trump can’t run suddenly — if campaign-ending news emerges in January 2020 or December 2019, let’s say.

Otherwise, remember there was chatter about Pence running for president in 2016. He didn’t because he was not very popular in Indiana and would likely not have done well in the GOP primary.

micah: Wouldn’t Pence be answering questions like, “What did you know and when?” and “Were you involved in X or Y?” every day?

natesilver: Right. And also, I think things are going to be totally haywire — unlike anything we’ve ever seen — if Trump is removed from office.

micah: Go on, Nate.

Paint a picture.

natesilver: I mean, for Trump to be removed from office, it necessarily means that a lot of Republicans will have voted to remove him from office! Parts of the base are going to be absolutely furious about that.

I’m not sure it’s possible for Pence to play to that anger while simultaneously distancing himself from Trump and saying he had nothing to do with the scandal(s).

clare.malone: That’s why governors or UN Ambassador Nikki Haley might be good to look at.

micah: Haley is getting some good reviews at the United Nations.

clare.malone: Yelp? Google Plus?

perry: Haley is in New York (where the UN is headquartered) and she was not on the campaign, so not involved at all in the D.C./Russia stuff, which would make it easier for her to defend herself about her involvement with any Trump scandal or legal issues. Also, she is an Indian-American woman. Yes, she would be a very intriguing prospect.

harry: Pence has a favorable rating of 84 percent among Trump voters and a “very favorable” rating of 61 percent. Pence’s “very favorable” rating is actually slightly higher than Trump’s among Trump voters.

micah: Yeah, see, I think Haley is removed enough from Trump to be viable in a Trump-is-toast world. Not Pence.

harry: Haley has generally been seen as a rising star. She could say she was chosen by Trump, but she has plenty of record to say she isn’t too close to him.

clare.malone: But I think Pence could still pull through? As long as his spheres stay relatively separate from the president’s? I guess I don’t know. That was the Gerry Ford play, but of course, he was a new VP, appointed, etc.

micah: Right, Ford wasn’t a member of Nixon World, really. Though he did defend the president through most of Watergate.

natesilver: You might need someone with gravitas, who can also position himself or herself as an outside savior.

Someone like …

clare.malone: MITT ROMNEY???

natesilver:

clare.malone: Yessssss.

lol

micah: OMG, I can see the headlines now: “ROMNEY RETURNS”

perry: I agree with the “outsider with gravitas” thing Nate said, which I think Haley fits well at this point. Plus she doesn’t have the stigma of having been an earlier loser, like Romney in 2012.

natesilver: Here’s the 2020 election map, Romney vs. Bernie Sanders:

micah: Oh god. Dear Sanders supporters, please direct your anger to @natesilver538 on Twitter.

perry: I see Romney as being in the Sasse/Kasich zone. The base may have lost trust in him because he comes off as moderate and bashed Trump too many times, which could cost him with the party faithful.

micah: Perry, don’t ruin our fun.

clare.malone: But he’s so handsome!!!!

micah: OK, what about this: Mitt Romney vs. Hillary Clinton in 2020.

perry: So boring!

micah: 2020: The Losers Bracket

clare.malone: Earth 2 scenario.

natesilver:

perry: I will have to quit journalism.

harry: Polls showed Sanders generally holding big leads over Romney, by the way.

micah: Who would be the most fun GOP challenger in 2020?

clare.malone: Lindsey Graham.

Just for the quotes.

natesilver: Fun in what sense?

harry: How about Lisa Murkowski?

natesilver: I don’t think she’d be fun.

Romney would be fun.

perry: Oh, I think Susan Collins or Murkowski would annoy Trump so much. The women who took down his Obamacare repeal. That would be interesting.

clare.malone: GARY JOHNSON.

micah: He’s not a Republican!

clare.malone: RICHARD NIXON, BACK FROM THE FROZEN DEAD.

harry: The most fun, to my mind, would be Sarah Palin.

natesilver: Mark Sanford.

Palin is a good call.

Melania Trump?

clare.malone: Ehh.

micah: The correct answer is … Joe Scarborough.

clare.malone: I think Palin is so over.

perry: Isn’t Scarborough basically already running against Trump?

natesilver: I think Collins is more likely to become a Democrat than to challenge Trump.

micah: There’s a legit chance Scarborough runs in 2020. He left the GOP, but he can always return — or run as an independent. Let’s say a 23 percent chance.

clare.malone: The Rock. We haven’t even talked about celebs stepping in.

micah: There aren’t any Republican celebrities, Clare.

clare.malone: Uh, Kid Rock much?

harry: Scott Baio.

micah: KID ROCK!

Clare wins.

Politics Podcast: Enter The Grand Jury

 












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This week on the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the team sizes up the news that special counsel Bob Mueller has empanelled a grand jury in his investigation into President Trump’s campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Grand juries don’t necessarily lead to indictments, but they have in some past political scandals, including Watergate and Iran-Contra. The team also looks at persisting rifts in the Democratic Party after some progressives have spoken out against three rising black Democrats.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen .

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Monday evenings, with occasional special episodes throughout the week. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes . Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.

Baseball Is Finally Realizing That The Save Is Dumb

Baseball’s trade deadline last week provided a referendum on how much value relief pitchers have in today’s game. And the results were fairly clear: Teams just don’t care about saves as much as they used to.

This season, we’ve been using our new relief pitching statistic, the goose egg, to track how bullpens are used. And the way relievers are deployed has, in fact, changed. Although it hasn’t been quite as dramatic as, say, the widespread adaptation of the defensive shift in baseball, there’s at least some evidence of teams using their best relief pitchers in smarter ways — using them in the highest-leverage situations, regardless of whether or not a save is on the line. Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen, who has been the best relief pitcher in baseball this season, is one prominent example. He often enters games in situations that the goose egg rewards but the save does not — such as when the score is tied, or anytime before the ninth inning.1 (A goose egg is essentially a clutch, scoreless relief inning.)

But a series of deadline trades provided evidence on the diminished value that teams place on saves. Plenty of relief pitchers were traded, but teams were seemingly indifferent about whether the pitchers they’d acquired had accumulated high save totals or not. Take the Twins’ Brandon Kintzler, for example, who was picked up by the Washington Nationals for minor-league pitching prospect Tyler Watson and international bonus pool money. Kintzler was second in the American League with 28 saves, and the Nationals have struggled to close out games all season — so you might have expected them to give up a king’s ransom for him. Instead they gave up … Watson, who had been the Nationals’ 27th best prospect before the season and had a 4.35 ERA in Single-A at the time he was dealt.

Other pitchers with high save totals, such as the Padres’ Brandon Maurer’ and the Marlins’ A.J. Ramos, didn’t fetch high prices, either. The prospects the Mets gave up for Ramos — pitcher Merandy Gonzalez and outfielder Ricardo Cespedes — were rated No. 14 and No. 23 in their system by Baseball America before the year began. The Mets also traded their own interim closer, Addison Reed, to Boston, nabbing three prospects; but none of them ranked higher than No. 20 in the Red Sox system. It’s not that the teams are giving up nothing for saves, exactly. But we’re a long ways removed from the days of the (infamous) Heathcliff Slocumb trade, when even mediocre closers could bring an elite prospect or two in return.

And teams aren’t necessarily privileging the closer’s old role when he switches teams. Kintzler isn’t expected to close many games in Washington; instead, he’s the No. 2 or No. 3 option in the bullpen behind Sean Doolittle, who had just three saves for the A’s at the time he was acquired in July. Maurer will only be the third option in the Royals’ bullpen. Ramos will close out games for the Mets, but only because regular closer Jeurys Familia is hurt and Reed was traded.

If teams are looking to goose eggs for guidance instead of saves, the National League leaders are Jansen and the Brewers’ Corey Knebel, who have 33 goose eggs each. Cleveland’s Andrew Miller leads the AL with 31 goose eggs, but he’s now injured, which could allow Tampa Bay’s Alex Colome (30 goose eggs) or Seattle’s Edwin Diaz (29 goose eggs) to pass him.

Jansen has been by far the most effective reliever in baseball, as measured by goose wins above replacement (GWAR). He’s maintained a perfect record on the season with no broken eggs,2 our term for when a pitcher has an opportunity for a goose egg but allows an earned run instead, and 33 goose eggs — good for 4.8 GWAR. Miller leads the AL with 3.2 GWAR. A complete rundown of goose statistics follows in the table below.

Goose stats through Aug. 6, 2017

PITCHER▲▼


TEAM▲▼


GOOSE EGGS▲▼


BROKEN EGGS▲▼


MEHS▲▼


GWAR▲▼






Kenley Jansen
LAD
33
0
1
+4.8


Corey Knebel
MIL
33
6
2
+2.7


Felipe Rivero
PIT
31
3
2
+3.5


Andrew Miller
CLE
31
5
2
+3.2


Alex Colome
TB
30
6
3
+2.3


Edwin Diaz
SEA
29
5
2
+2.5


Brad Hand
SD
28
4
5
+2.6


Addison Reed
BOS/NYM
25
5
5
+1.8


Joakim Soria
KC
25
7
2
+1.3


Raisel Iglesias
CIN
24
1
0
+3.2


Trevor Rosenthal
STL
24
7
1
+0.9


Greg Holland
COL
23
3
0
+2.7


Craig Kimbrel
BOS
23
4
0
+2.2


Brad Brach
BAL
23
4
1
+2.1


Michael Lorenzen
CIN
23
4
1
+2.0


Kelvin Herrera
KC
23
5
2
+1.8


Jacob Barnes
MIL
23
7
3
+0.9


Fernando Rodney
ARI
22
4
3
+1.9


Archie Bradley
ARI
22
4
5
+1.9


Brandon Kintzler
MIN
22
4
4
+1.9


Justin Wilson
CHC/DET
22
5
1
+1.5


Roberto Osuna
TOR
22
7
1
+0.9


Tony Watson
LAD/PIT
22
7
4
+0.7


Seung-hwan Oh
STL
21
5
4
+1.2


Wade Davis
CHC
20
1
1
+2.6


Nick Vincent
SEA
20
2
5
+2.3


Ryan Tepera
TOR
20
3
0
+2.0


Hector Neris
PHI
20
5
3
+1.1


Pat Neshek
COL/PHI
19
2
5
+2.1


David Robertson
CHW/NYY
19
5
1
+1.0


Arodys Vizcaino
ATL
19
6
2
+0.6


Sam Dyson
SF/TEX
19
8
2
-0.1


Jim Johnson
ATL
19
8
3
-0.1


Tommy Hunter
TB
18
2
1
+2.0


Ryan Madson
OAK/WAS
18
3
1
+1.6


Dellin Betances
NYY
18
5
1
+1.0


Cody Allen
CLE
18
6
3
+0.7


Taylor Rogers
MIN
18
6
3
+0.5


Brandon Maurer
KC/SD
18
7
0
+0.1


Bryan Shaw
CLE
17
4
4
+1.3


Mike Minor
KC
17
4
3
+1.2


Hunter Strickland
SF
17
4
1
+1.0


Chris Devenski
HOU
17
8
5
-0.5


Joe Smith
TOR
16
1
1
+2.1


Anthony Swarzak
CHW/MIL
16
1
0
+2.0


Mychal Givens
BAL
16
3
3
+1.4


Matt Belisle
MIN
16
3
3
+1.3


Will Harris
HOU
16
3
0
+1.3


Matthew Bowman
STL
16
5
4
+0.5


Matt Barnes
BOS
16
6
3
+0.4


Matt Bush
TEX
16
6
2
+0.4


Bud Norris
LAA
16
7
1
-0.2


Santiago Casilla
OAK
16
7
2
-0.2


David Phelps
MIA/SEA
16
8
3
-0.6


Joaquin Benoit
PHI/PIT
16
10
0
-1.3


Alex Claudio
TEX
15
3
5
+1.3


Shane Greene
DET
15
3
4
+1.2


Blake Parker
LAA
15
3
1
+1.2


AJ Ramos
MIA
15
4
2
+0.7


Koji Uehara
CHC
15
5
3
+0.3


Carl Edwards
CHC
15
6
3
+0.0


Jose Ramirez
ATL
14
4
2
+0.6


Brett Cecil
STL
14
4
3
+0.6


Jerry Blevins
NYM
14
4
7
+0.6


Ryan Buchter
KC/SD
14
6
3
-0.2


Tommy Kahnle
CHW/NYY
14
7
1
-0.5


Aroldis Chapman
NYY
13
1
2
+1.7


Pedro Strop
CHC
13
1
3
+1.5


Mike Montgomery
CHC
13
2
1
+1.2


Enny Romero
WAS
13
4
6
+0.4


Kyle Barraclough
MIA
13
4
1
+0.4


Adam Ottavino
COL
13
7
3
-0.4


David Hernandez
ARI/LAA
12
1
3
+1.4


Ken Giles
HOU
12
3
3
+0.7


Yusmeiro Petit
LAA
11
1
2
+1.3


Sean Doolittle
OAK/WAS
11
2
5
+0.9


Wandy Peralta
CIN
11
3
1
+0.5


Derek Law
SF
11
3
1
+0.5


Pedro Baez
LAD
11
4
6
+0.1


Jorge De La Rosa
ARI
11
5
1
-0.1


Alex Wilson
DET
11
6
5
-0.5


Mike Dunn
COL
10
0
2
+1.6


Tyler Duffey
MIN
10
3
2
+0.4


James Pazos
SEA
10
3
4
+0.4


Jake McGee
COL
10
4
2
+0.2


Neftali Feliz
KC/MIL
10
5
0
-0.3


Juan Nicasio
PIT
10
6
8
-0.7


Blake Treinen
OAK/WAS
10
6
1
-0.7


Matt Albers
WAS
9
2
4
+0.6


Joe Biagini
TOR
9
3
2
+0.3


Darren O’Day
BAL
9
3
2
+0.3


Hector Rondon
CHC
9
3
1
+0.2


Heath Hembree
BOS
9
4
5
+0.0


Jared Hughes
MIL
9
4
1
-0.1


Mark Melancon
SF
9
4
0
-0.2


Liam Hendriks
OAK
9
5
1
-0.5


Peter Moylan
KC
8
0
3
+1.2


Zach Britton
BAL
8
0
0
+1.2


Marc Rzepczynski
SEA
8
1
6
+0.8


Kevin Siegrist
STL
8
1
2
+0.8


Koda Glover
WAS
8
2
2
+0.4


Chris Rusin
COL
8
3
3
+0.2


Keone Kela
TEX
8
3
2
+0.2


Adam Warren
NYY
8
3
1
+0.2


Danny Farquhar
TB
8
3
2
+0.1


Kirby Yates
LAA/SD
8
3
1
+0.1


Cory Gearrin
SF
8
3
1
+0.1


Tony Zych
SEA
8
4
3
-0.3


George Kontos
SF
8
6
3
-1.1


Tyler Clippard
CHW/NYY
8
9
7
-2.0


Erasmo Ramirez
TB
7
1
2
+0.7


Sam Freeman
ATL
7
1
2
+0.7


Phil Maton
SD
7
1
1
+0.7


Joe Kelly
BOS
7
2
4
+0.4


Jose Leclerc
TEX
7
2
3
+0.4


Deolis Guerra
LAA
7
2
0
+0.3


Jeanmar Gomez
PHI
7
2
1
+0.3


Josh Smoker
NYM
7
2
3
+0.3


Danny Barnes
TOR
7
4
2
-0.4


Jose Alvarado
TB
7
4
3
-0.4


Luis Garcia
PHI
7
4
2
-0.4


Hansel Robles
NYM
7
4
2
-0.5


Luke Gregerson
HOU
7
5
2
-0.8


Jonathan Holder
NYY
6
1
1
+0.6


Nick Wittgren
MIA
6
1
1
+0.5


Scott Oberg
COL
6
2
3
+0.3


Chasen Shreve
NYY
6
2
3
+0.2


T. J. McFarland
ARI
6
2
1
+0.2


Ian Krol
ATL
6
2
3
+0.2


Shawn Kelley
WAS
6
2
0
+0.1


Tony Barnette
TEX
6
3
0
-0.1


J. J. Hoover
ARI
6
3
2
-0.2


Cam Bedrosian
LAA
6
3
3
-0.2


Chase Whitley
TB
6
4
1
-0.6


Carlos Torres
MIL
6
4
3
-0.6


Daniel Hudson
PIT
6
4
4
-0.6


Steven Okert
SF
6
4
8
-0.6


Paul Sewald
NYM
6
4
2
-0.6


Ross Stripling
LAD
6
4
1
-0.6


Jumbo Diaz
TB
6
5
3
-0.9


Fernando Abad
BOS
5
0
1
+0.8


Randall Delgado
ARI
5
0
0
+0.8


Blaine Boyer
BOS
5
1
0
+0.4


Steve Cishek
SEA/TB
5
1
2
+0.4


Oliver Perez
WAS
5
1
4
+0.4


Brad Ziegler
MIA
5
1
2
+0.4


Ryan Dull
OAK
5
2
3
+0.0


Jacob Turner
WAS
5
2
0
+0.0


Joely Rodriguez
PHI
5
2
4
+0.0


Josh Edgin
NYM
5
2
5
+0.0


Junichi Tazawa
MIA
5
3
0
-0.4


Jose Alvarez
LAA
5
5
3
-1.1


Fernando Salas
NYM
5
5
4
-1.1


Hector Velazquez
BOS
4
0
0
+0.6


Logan Verrett
BAL
4
0
0
+0.6


Brandon Workman
BOS
4
1
0
+0.3


Richard Bleier
BAL
4
1
1
+0.3


Nate Jones
CHW
4
1
0
+0.2


Jeurys Familia
NYM
4
1
2
+0.2


Doug Fister
BOS
4
2
0
-0.1


Dominic Leone
TOR
4
2
6
-0.1


Ryan Pressly
MIN
4
2
1
-0.1


Bruce Rondon
DET
4
2
0
-0.1


Oliver Drake
MIL
4
2
1
-0.1


Tony Cingrani
CIN
4
2
3
-0.1


Luis Avilan
LAD
4
2
4
-0.2


Jason Grilli
TEX/TOR
4
3
3
-0.5


Jose Torres
SD
4
4
1
-0.9


Austin Pruitt
TB
3
0
0
+0.5


Austin Brice
CIN
3
0
0
+0.5


Craig Stammen
SD
3
0
1
+0.4


Bryan Morris
SF
3
0
0
+0.4


Justin Grimm
CHC
3
0
1
+0.4


Brian Duensing
CHC
3
0
0
+0.4


Alex Wood
LAD
3
0
1
+0.4


Donnie Hart
BAL
3
1
3
+0.1


Alec Asher
BAL
3
1
1
+0.1


Mike Bolsinger
TOR
3
1
0
+0.1


Trevor Hildenberger
MIN
3
1
0
+0.1


Kenyan Middleton
LAA
3
1
0
+0.1


Albert Suarez
SF
3
1
0
+0.1


Dustin McGowan
MIA
3
1
1
+0.1


Robby Scott
BOS
3
2
9
-0.2


Scott Alexander
KC
3
2
1
-0.3


Aaron Loup
TOR
3
2
7
-0.3


Drew Storen
CIN
3
2
3
-0.3


Jhan Marinez
MIL/PIT
3
2
0
-0.3


Rex Brothers
ATL
3
2
1
-0.3


Casey Fien
PHI/SEA
3
2
0
-0.3


Joe Blanton
WAS
3
2
0
-0.3


Sam Tuivailala
STL
3
2
0
-0.3


Josh Osich
SF
3
2
5
-0.3


Travis Wood
KC
3
3
1
-0.6


Dan Altavilla
SEA
3
3
1
-0.7


Sergio Romo
LAD/TB
3
3
0
-0.7


Brandon Morrow
LAD
3
3
0
-0.7


Josh Fields
LAD
3
4
2
-1.1


Francisco Rodriguez
DET
3
8
2
-2.5


Edubray Ramos
PHI
3
11
0
-3.6


Dan Otero
CLE
2
0
0
+0.3


Dario Alvarez
TEX
2
0
1
+0.3


Jake Junis
KC
2
0
0
+0.3


Jake Barrett
ARI
2
0
3
+0.3


Jake Petricka
CHW
2
0
2
+0.3


Zach Putnam
CHW
2
0
0
+0.3


Josh Hader
MIL
2
0
2
+0.3


Josh Smith
OAK
2
0
0
+0.3


Dovydas Neverauskas
PIT
2
0
0
+0.3


Adam Morgan
PHI
2
0
0
+0.3


Brock Stewart
LAD
2
0
0
+0.3


Jordan Lyles
COL
2
1
0
+0.0


Chad Qualls
COL
2
1
0
+0.0


Drew VerHagen
DET
2
1
0
-0.1


Kyle Ryan
DET
2
1
0
-0.1


Daniel Stumpf
DET
2
1
4
-0.1


Jason Motte
ATL
2
1
2
-0.1


Eric O’Flaherty
ATL
2
1
1
-0.1


Robert Gsellman
NYM
2
1
0
-0.1


Drew Steckenrider
MIA
2
1
0
-0.1


Robert Stephenson
CIN
2
2
0
-0.4


Matt Strahm
KC
2
3
1
-0.8


Brad Boxberger
TB
2
3
1
-0.8


Blake Wood
CIN
2
3
1
-0.8


Daniel Coulombe
OAK
2
3
4
-0.8


Wade LeBlanc
PIT
2
3
2
-0.8


Dan Jennings
CHW/TB
2
4
8
-1.2


Andrew Chafin
ARI
2
6
6
-1.9


Carlos Estevez
COL
1
0
0
+0.2


Boone Logan
CLE
1
0
4
+0.2


Robbie Ross
BOS
1
0
0
+0.2


Ben Taylor
BOS
1
0
1
+0.2


Tanner Scheppers
TEX
1
0
1
+0.2


Ben Heller
NYY
1
0
1
+0.2


Kevin McCarthy
KC
1
0
0
+0.2


Chris Young
KC
1
0
0
+0.2


Miguel Castro
BAL
1
0
1
+0.2


Yovani Gallardo
SEA
1
0
0
+0.2


Mike Morin
LAA
1
0
1
+0.2


Jean Machi
SEA
1
0
1
+0.2


Brooks Pounders
LAA
1
0
0
+0.2


Asher Wojciechowski
CIN
1
0
0
+0.2


A. J. Schugel
PIT
1
0
0
+0.1


Luke Jackson
ATL
1
0
0
+0.1


Brad Peacock
HOU
1
0
1
+0.1


Ty Blach
SF
1
0
1
+0.1


Miguel Socolovich
STL
1
0
1
+0.1


Zach McAllister
CLE
1
1
1
-0.2


Caleb Smith
NYY
1
1
0
-0.2


Tyler Wilson
BAL
1
1
1
-0.2


Jeff Beliveau
TOR
1
1
1
-0.2


Tom Wilhelmsen
ARI
1
1
2
-0.2


Justin Haley
MIN
1
1
0
-0.2


Warwick Saupold
DET
1
1
2
-0.2


Andrew Kittredge
TB
1
1
0
-0.2


Rob Scahill
MIL
1
1
0
-0.2


Frankie Montas
OAK
1
1
0
-0.2


Matt Grace
WAS
1
1
2
-0.2


Francis Martes
HOU
1
1
0
-0.2


Tony Sipp
HOU
1
1
0
-0.2


James Hoyt
HOU
1
1
0
-0.2


Michael Feliz
HOU
1
1
0
-0.2


Erik Goeddel
NYM
1
1
0
-0.2


Buddy Baumann
SD
1
1
1
-0.2


Grant Dayton
LAD
1
1
2
-0.2


Blaine Hardy
DET
1
2
1
-0.6


Emilio Pagan
SEA
1
2
0
-0.6


Aaron Bummer
CHW
1
2
0
-0.6


Wily Peralta
MIL
1
2
0
-0.6


John Axford
OAK
1
2
0
-0.6


Sammy Solis
WAS
1
2
0
-0.6


Jonathan Broxton
STL
1
2
0
-0.6


Kevin Quackenbush
SD
1
2
0
-0.6


Chris Hatcher
LAD
1
2
1
-0.6


Jeremy Jeffress
TEX
1
3
1
-0.9


Rafael Montero
NYM
1
3
1
-1.0


Lucas Harrell
TOR
0
0
1
+0.0


Hoby Milner
PHI
0
0
1
+0.0


Brent Suter
MIL
0
0
1
+0.0


Gabriel Ynoa
BAL
0
0
1
+0.0


Nick Goody
CLE
0
0
1
+0.0


Parker Bridwell
LAA
0
0
1
+0.0


John Brebbia
STL
0
0
1
+0.0


Chad Bell
DET
0
0
1
+0.0


Akeel Morris
ATL
0
0
1
+0.0


Jarlin Garcia
MIA
0
0
2
+0.0


Ernesto Frieri
TEX
0
1
0
-0.4


Bryan Mitchell
NYY
0
1
0
-0.4


Ronald Herrera
NYY
0
1
0
-0.4


Giovanny Gallegos
NYY
0
1
0
-0.4


Domingo German
NYY
0
1
0
-0.4


Al Alburquerque
KC
0
1
0
-0.4


Stefan Chrichton
BAL
0
1
0
-0.4


Vidal Nuno
BAL
0
1
0
-0.4


Casey Lawrence
TOR
0
1
0
-0.4


J. P. Howell
TOR
0
1
0
-0.4


Jayson Aquino
BAL
0
1
0
-0.4


Rubby De La Rosa
ARI
0
1
1
-0.4


Hector Santiago
MIN
0
1
0
-0.4


Buddy Boshers
MIN
0
1
0
-0.4


Craig Breslow
MIN
0
1
0
-0.4


Joe Jimenez
DET
0
1
0
-0.4


Xavier Cedeno
TB
0
1
3
-0.4


Jesse Chavez
LAA
0
1
0
-0.4


Diego Moreno
TB
0
1
0
-0.4


Chase De Jong
SEA
0
1
0
-0.4


Ryne Stanek
TB
0
1
3
-0.4


Chris Beck
CHW
0
1
2
-0.4


Greg Infante
CHW
0
1
1
-0.4


Simon Castro
OAK
0
1
0
-0.4


Antonio Bastardo
PIT
0
1
0
-0.4


Johnny Barbato
PIT
0
1
0
-0.4


Mark Leiter
PHI
0
1
0
-0.4


Ricardo Pinto
PHI
0
1
1
-0.4


Jandel Gustave
HOU
0
1
0
-0.4


Neil Ramirez
NYM
0
1
2
-0.4


Tyler Lyons
STL
0
1
2
-0.4


Tyler Pill
NYM
0
1
0
-0.4


Miguel Diaz
SD
0
1
0
-0.4


Adam Conley
MIA
0
1
0
-0.4


Chad Green
NYY
0
2
2
-0.7


Evan Scribner
SEA
0
2
0
-0.7


Adam Kolarek
TB
0
2
1
-0.7


J. C. Ramirez
LAA
0
2
0
-0.7


Josh Collmenter
ATL
0
2
0
-0.7


Francisco Liriano
HOU
0
2
0
-0.7


Ryan Garton
TB
0
3
0
-1.1

Source: Seamheads.com

Check out our latest MLB predictions.

Trump’s Problems Are Piling Up, So What Should He Do Now?

In this week’s politics chat, we do our best to right the Trump ship. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): The Trump administration, as Nate wrote this morning, is struggling. And since we here at FiveThirtyEight are patriots, I thought it’d be good to don our political adviser hats and offer President Trump and his team some advice.

So, here’s our playbook for today:

What should Trump do on Russia?
What should Trump do on policy?
What should Trump do on politics/message?
What should Trump do on staffing?

OK, so let’s start with Russia because we got news on that on Thursday. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, a sign that his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase, according to people familiar with the matter.

So what do you make of this news? Mueller is looking into whether Trump or Trumpworld people colluded with that interference. Is this a big deal? Expected? And what should Trump do?

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): I would say it’s not a surprise, but it’s a really big deal still.

Grand juries don’t have to lead to indictments. But they often do. And an indictment around the issue of the president and/or his allies would be, of course, a really big deal.

harry (Harry Enten, senior political writer): It’s another mark on the yellow brick road. Chances are you wouldn’t bring a nothingburger to a grand jury (though that could happen).

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): What the fuck kind of mixed metaphor is that, Harry?

“Like they always say, don’t eat a nothingburger on the yellow brick road.”

micah: Honestly, I ❤ you, Harry, but you are terrible at metaphor-ing.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): OK, so the grand jury is another step. But what does Trump do as all this bad news is piling up?

He should ideally shut up about Russia stuff. Will he? Probably not. “Witch hunt” is probably in his top 10 phrases right now.

perry: Trump, I would argue, now really, really can’t try to fire Mueller or replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions so that a new AG would fire Mueller. That would have been a huge problem before but would be even more huge now.

natesilver: So … let’s say the Trump campaign actually did collude with Russia. Not “pee tape” level stuff, necessarily. But let’s say the Trump campaign actively helped/encouraged Russia to hack the Democratic National Committee (even though Russia could probably have figured it out themselves) and that Trump himself had knowledge of this. What should Trump do then?

harry: If he fires Mueller after Mueller impaneled a grand jury, it indicates Trump has something to hide.

natesilver: But what if he does have something to hide?

You’re his new chief of staff and over a round of golf, Trump is like, “Uhhh dude, actually we did collude with Russia.” What’s your advice?

harry: I guess he’d try to stall? I don’t know. Stalling works for only so long, though. Fire Mueller and someone else (Congress, for example) will likely pick up the investigation.

clare.malone: If he does have something to hide, he should be quiet.

I honestly don’t know what you do in that case.

natesilver: So none of you — and remember, we’re being as Machiavellian as possible here — think it would be “smart” for him to fire Mueller (even if he has a lot to hide).

perry: I do not think it would be smart to fire Mueller. We know a president has been removed from office for firing the special prosecutor. (To be exact, that was part of the process that led to Nixon resigning.) I don’t actually know what happens if you colluded with Russia. Some kinds of coordination/collusion may not actually be illegal.

clare.malone: Oh. Well … I think the whole looking into the legal angle of self-pardoning is interesting. And probably very worthwhile from the White House’s side of things. I.e., due diligence, which is what you hire those fancy lawyers for.

It’s a bold new frontier of constitutional law!

micah: But self-pardoning doesn’t inoculate him against impeachment. In fact, it would probably guarantee his impeachment, right?

clare.malone: You make a fair point.

natesilver: i think self-pardoning is the one thing that would almost guarantee his impeachment and removal from office, even with a GOP-controlled Congress.

harry: I just tend to believe that this stuff takes a long time to play out. Even if Trump has something to hide, they might not find it.

natesilver: But you could try to muddy the waters, no? “Hey, everybody plays a little bit dirty.”

“Hey, Mueller’s getting out of bounds with the investigation.”

harry: Sure — so why not yell at Mueller and not fire him?

micah: OK, so which is it? Keep quiet vs. muddy the waters?

harry: Just don’t fire him. That’s for sure.

clare.malone: Like, this is basically asking us, “How would you conduct a criminal conspiracy?” — if he is guilty and he tells his chief of staff that.

perry: Lol

natesilver: I’m asking you to give advice to the president of the United States, Clare, out of your sense of patriotic duty.

harry: This is what I’m listening to as we discuss all this:

micah: But I think the keep quiet vs. muddy the waters question is clarifying — because the correct answer, in my humble opinion, is to keep quiet if you think you didn’t do anything that would merit impeachment/removal from office and to muddy the waters if you think you did.

clare.malone: Under advice of counsel, I’m invoking my Fifth Amendment rights.

perry: Honestly, the real advice would be to pin whatever happened on Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. or Michael Flynn, admit something happened but say it was done by someone else and, yes, you should have done more to stop the collusion.

If he is actually guilty, that is what he would do.

micah: Perry gets realpolitik. I love it!

clare.malone: Yeah, I mean, Manafort and Flynn, since they are not family members, are the best bet, right? If we are thinking with Trump Brain.

harry: I like Perry’s idea. But, again, stalling like that only buys you time in my opinion.

micah: And then they likely flip on you.

(As a reminder: We’re talking about the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!)

natesilver: In Russia, the witness flips YOU.

I guess what I’m getting at — and this chat was supposed to be forward looking rather than backward looking — is that maybe Trump’s actions so far are more consistent with someone who does have something to hide.

micah: Nate, that was obvious about five months ago. That doesn’t mean he does have something to hide — just that he’s acting that way.

natesilver: hahaha

perry: Just to step back again … I know these incremental details on the Russia story are hard for people to gauge, in terms of importance. But impaneling a grand jury is the latest ramp-up of this investigation. So it’s an important development.

micah: OK, next up: policy. If you were advising the White House, what would you advise it to do? Keep trying on health care? Focus on infrastructure? Not push any policies?

perry: Stop on health care policy.

clare.malone: Well … seems like they’re making a little pivot to please the base with that proposal to cut legal immigration.

harry: Trump’s job approval rating dropped multiple times when health care measures failed in the House and Senate. If Trump is going to keep trying on health care, he has to succeed. And even then, he has to find a plan that people actually like.

natesilver: I’d throw Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell under the bus on health care (possibly with McConnell’s consent).

I’d hold a big press conference and say: “Mitch, Paul. Start over. This isn’t the bill I promised the American people. Start over, and let’s do something better.”

clare.malone: I think someone is probably in his ear saying, “Bide your time, and come back.”

natesilver: The thing about the GOP health care bills is that they weren’t popular with much of anyone at all, including with Trump’s voters. So you don’t face the trade-off you do on other issues between pleasing your base and reaching out to moderates.

clare.malone: You gotta let some of this develop behind the scenes so you don’t have a big ol’ public mess like you’ve had the past couple of months.

perry: I would do tax cuts (not tax reform, which is more complicated). And some kind of job-creating infrastructure bill that draws in West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and other red-state Democrats.

natesilver: Yeah. A big ol’ tax cut, with plenty of tax cuts for the middle class.

clare.malone: I think you have to do something like infrastructure before taxes.

People need something that feels like a return to Trump’s campaign promises — rebuilding things! Making things! And also, bipartisan, so you can get points for that.

harry: Tax cuts are good because they are popular with Republican members of Congress. The potential problem with infrastructure is Trump might need Democratic votes, and I’m not sure he’ll get them at this time.

micah: Wait, let’s vote on this: Which should they do first, infrastructure or taxes?

Clare says infrastructure

Harry says taxes.

natesilver: They should have done infrastructure first, back in January or February. I think that ship has probably sailed, though. With Trump at 45 percent approval, he might have gotten a few Democratic votes. If he’s at 37 percent instead, they’ll probably be more inclined to let him fail. Unless he cuts them a very good deal.

harry: Yeah, I’m going with taxes. You can’t play for the middle when your support among your base is meh.

perry: I would say taxes, because I think Trump should get Republicans on the Hill back behind him first and worry about pleasing centrist members of Congress and swing voters later. And the Hill wants tax cuts.

micah: Hmm … the correct answer is infrastructure. Let’s not confuse Trump’s base with the GOP base. Trump should strike out on his own!

clare.malone: Yeah, Micah — welcome to the team!

natesilver: What reason is there to think he can get an infrastructure bill passed?

micah: He doesn’t need it to pass. He just needs to crusade for it.

clare.malone: I guess we’re all still thinking a little in the health-care mindset too.

That was an issue where Democrats couldn’t stray from the party line. And on other stuff, I think people feel a little more free to buck their party.

harry: Are we dismissing the idea that Trump wants wins?

natesilver: The “wanting wins” stuff is dumb as shit. That’s part of his problem. He’s watching too much dumb-ass media coverage and not thinking about the long term.

perry: I might disagree with the idea that voters (the GOP base or Trump’s base) matter much at this stage. Trump’s big problems right now are the Russia investigation (and possible impeachment) and the lack of progress in Washington on anything. So I would patch up things with Congress first if I were him. And I think that is with tax cuts.

micah: OK, so Clare and I won that argument.

No one wants to suggest that Trump should make a push on immigration (as he’s already started to do)? It feels like there’s an immigration push he could make that would sorta box Democrats in.

harry: Well, that’s certainly the direction Trump is going in. It’s a push toward his primary appeal, but how many people say they want to limit legal immigration?

micah: You tell me, Harry.

perry: Some Republican members don’t support the proposal Trump and two GOP senators put out on Wednesday limiting legal immigration. That doesn’t seem like an easy bill to pass. Maybe a bill that targets sanctuary cities and illegal immigration would be easier.

natesilver: The limiting legal immigration is a weirdly clumsy/unpopular idea on an issue where Trump’s ideas to limit illegal immigration might be fairly popular.

clare.malone: Yeah, what Perry said. He’s going to have some Republican problems too on limiting legal immigration. Like, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was very vocal in opposing Wednesday’s proposal; he made the point that there are a lot of low-wage jobs that immigrants typically fill and that state economies rely upon to make certain sectors work.

harry: 62 percent(!) of American adults say legal immigration is not threatening to the U.S. Just 28 percent say the same thing about illegal immigration.

perry: Also, I think liberal opposition, which was a factor in the health care debate, would be very strong on immigration. I suspect it would be less so on a tax cut.

natesilver: It’s perhaps worth pointing out that the travel ban polled OK — at least compared with some of Trump’s other policies.

clare.malone: Yeah. So I have a theory that Democrats do need to be a little more clear/tougher in their immigration language.

micah: The Theory Of Clare-ativity

clare.malone: Right now, I think there’s this perception out there that the Democrats want everyone, no matter what, to just come into the country. This is an image that has, to a certain extent, been foisted upon them and maybe skews their actual stance. But it’s an image problem that is sticking, and they need to do some clarification on it.

micah: That’s a good segue to messaging.

Does Trump need to adjust his messaging/political strategy regardless of the policies he’s pursuing? Like, let’s just talk broad strokes.

natesilver: Is that a question, Micah?

micah: There’s a freaking question mark, isn’t there?

harry: Whoa.

natesilver: I once had an idea for a computer virus that replaced all exclamation points with question marks and all question marks with exclamation points.

micah: OK, let’s make it simple so that Nate can follow along. Fill in the blank: Trump should present himself as the __________ president.

perry: I’m somewhat skeptical that the messaging matters a lot, and I felt this way when former President Barack Obama was struggling during his presidency too. Trump can tweet what he wants, as long as he gets stuff done.

micah: Perry, that doesn’t really fit in the blank.

harry: I’d argue that one of the biggest problems for Trump is that he’s not positioning himself against a Democratic Congress. He’s butting heads with a Republican Congress right now.

clare.malone: I think that’s what he ultimately wants to do

perry: Trump should present himself as the disruptive, fix-it president. I think he basically has that right.

natesilver: Presenting himself as a populist outsider is fine. He hasn’t governed like one, though.

clare.malone: Right! So maybe that’s why he does infrastructure!

micah: YES!! Nate comes around.

natesilver: Another messaging thought: If I were Trump, I’d keep the media-bashing as part of my arsenal. Not discrediting everything as FAKE NEWS. But the trollish stuff is pretty effective.

perry: I agree with that, as much as it pains me to say as a journalist.

clare.malone: Nate would hire a troll. And put him under the Key Bridge and give him a phone and Twitter access.

harry: Most Americans agree that the media is biased.

natesilver: There’s some strategy there, in that Republican voters — including those who don’t particularly like Trump — still think he’s treated unfairly by the press.

micah: Can I return to Harry’s point about who controls the House for a minute? Does Trump want Republicans to lose control of Congress in 2018 so that he’ll have a foil? Does he need a foil?

perry: No, with Democrats in control of the House, you are really raising the odds of impeachment.

clare.malone: He wants more Trumpians in Congress, so he’ll just support primary opponents like he’s already hinting at with, say, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona.

natesilver: Trump maybe wants Republicans to lose the House, yeah. Although as Perry says … impeachment. So it depends on whether and/or how much he actually colluded with Russia and so forth.

harry: There’s a hot take out there that impeachment would be good for Trump politically. I’m not writing it, but it could be written.

natesilver: As Harry is getting at, there’s a world in which the justification for impeachment is somewhat flimsy and the politics of it actually become easier for him to handle if Democrats are leading the charge.

perry: Trump is currently bashing Republicans on the Hill. I don’t think that is smart. It sounds like Micah and Clare think that is smart? The triangulation approach more or less?

micah: I think it could be smart, yeah. I mean, it’s not like Republicans on the Hill are all that popular.

natesilver: In the world in which there are good reasons to impeach Trump — severe collusion, he’s fired Mueller, etc. — then Trump doesn’t want Democrats in charge of the House.

micah: The problem for Trump, I think, is he has such little credibility that he needs his policy agenda to back up his political messaging in a way that other presidents did not — they had a bit more wiggle room probably. But I think if Trump pursued a nationalist/populist agenda — let’s say infrastructure + middle class tax cuts + his hardline immigration policies — he could sorta triangulate between Democrats and Republicans.

It probably wouldn’t help the GOP in 2018, but it might help Trump in 2020.

Anyone buying that?

harry: It’s the Bill Clinton playbook, as Perry noted.

natesilver: It would take a lot of discipline. Almost half the country has a strongly negative opinion of his presidency. So it’s going to take sustained efforts to win them back. A half-hearted approach at populism could cost him more Republican support than it wins moderate support.

micah: To be clear: I don’t think this will actually happen.

clare.malone: But if he drank a magic potion that made him disciplined but kept all his rhetoric intact, you think it could?

micah: Yeah.

natesilver: That’s like asking if I could play in the NBA if I were a great athlete.

perry: I don’t think Trump has the staff for that kind of triangulation. His team is too conservative. (Vice President Mike Pence, for example) My advice to him would be to get up each day and think about what Marco Rubio would do and do that. Yes, Trump won the presidency his way, but being effective in Washington can help him win a second term. And I think governing through the party is an easier way to do that. Maybe think about what George W. Bush would have done (except on foreign policy).

micah: Good segue! Let’s talk staffing!

Were you an adviser to Trump, how would thoust advise him on staffing?

natesilver: Fire Jared Kushner.

clare.malone: Hire Ivanka Trump.

natesilver: Or keep Jared and do the opposite of whatever he says.

clare.malone: For real.

perry: He should choose either 1. nationalists (the Steve Bannon route), 2. moderates (Ivanka, Jared), or 3. Pence-style conservatives. And then staff his White House accordingly. His current staff doesn’t align. It almost invites tension on every issue.

micah: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Well, maybe he’s going for a TEAM OF RIVALS!?

perry: Does that work, outside of the Civil War?

natesilver: There’s a separate family issue, though. They’re not really qualified to provide good advice. And they leak all the fucking time.

harry: Teams of rivals don’t really work. Heck, even Abraham Lincoln got rid of that team of rivals.

clare.malone: Guys, what is the thing that Trump naturally grasps? Nationalism.

I think that’s what he goes with. If you’re going to tell him to pick a staffing strain of things.

micah: So go full Bannon?

clare.malone: And to that end, John Kelly is a smart hire. Someone who shares core values about immigration but who has the discipline the president lacks. Perhaps Kelly might do some talent hunting to replicate his own strengths.

natesilver: Bannon is also a hard guy to fire because he probably knows most of your secrets, and he has a big media platform that he can use if you turn on him.

micah: (Even in this role-playing setting, it makes me really uncomfortable to be advising the president to go full-Bannon.)

perry: So if Kelly is going in that direction (nationalism), that would align the staff. But my impression is that Kelly is kind of an organizational man, who is not really part of any of the factions. I could be wrong.

harry: That’s my impression as well. He’s an office manager, not an office leader.

micah: Isn’t he an immigration hardliner, Perry?

perry: Yeah, but Bannon wants to do lots of other things too, not just on immigration. I don’t know if Kelly wants to get out of NAFTA or realign foreign policy to stop the rise of Islam.

clare.malone: Everyone gets politicized. That’s my take. Eventually, he’ll lean to a side.

micah:

Why A Trump Pivot Might Backfire

It doesn’t take much to spur pundits and reporters to declare that President Trump is on the verge of a “pivot.” Maybe new chief of staff John Kelly will bring Trump into line, Axios reported. Maybe, after the failure1 of the Republican health care bill last week, the White House will reach out to Democrats to work with them on tax reform and other issues, according to a Daily Caller report.

Maybe. But probably not. It’s not just that these pivot predictions have never really come true before. It’s also that, in attempting a pivot to the center, Trump would run the risk of losing more support among conservatives than he’d gain among moderates.

Trump’s problem is that there aren’t many voters who could plausibly be persuaded to join the Trump train, at least not on short notice. Not only are Trump’s disapproval ratings high — about 58 percent of the country now disapproves of Trump’s job performance, the highest figure of his presidency to date — but also most of the voters who disapprove of him do so strongly.

In May, when we looked at polls that broke Trump’s approval rating into four categories — strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove and strongly disapprove — we found that his strong disapproval ratings exceeded his strong approval ratings by about a 2:1 margin. The numbers have actually gotten a little worse for Trump since then. His strong disapproval rating, based on the technique FiveThirtyEight uses to calculate approval ratings, is now 47.4 percent, up from 44.1 percent on May 23. And Trump’s strong approval rating is just 20.4 percent, down from a tick from 21.4 percent in May.

Almost half the country strongly disapproves of Trump

Average job approval ratings for President Trump, as of Aug. 2

OPINION
SHARE HOLDING OPINION




Strongly approve
20.4%

–



Somewhat approve
16.4

–



Somewhat disapprove
10.9

–



Strongly disapprove
47.4

–

Based on FiveThirtyEight approval ratings calculation, using polls through Aug. 2 that separate approval ratings into four categories.

As we wrote back in the spring, it’s something of a myth that Trump has an enormous base that’s impervious to any and all missteps from the White House. Instead, he has his fair share of support, but it’s a mix of base voters (about 20 percent of the population) and other voters who support him more reluctantly (16 or 17 percent of Americans “somewhat approve” of Trump).

What Trump doesn’t have is very many people who “somewhat disapprove” of his performance; this group makes up only about 11 percent of the country. It might not sound helpful to have voters who somewhat disapprove of you, but they’re a lot easier to bring over to your side than voters who strongly disapprove of you.

Suppose, for instance, that as a result of an attempted pivot — wherein Trump took centrist positions on taxes and a couple of other high-profile issues — voter preferences were scrambled, and half the voters who were formerly in the “somewhat disapprove” category moved to somewhat approving of Trump’s performance instead. (Chances are that a lot of these voters would be moderates, who are overrepresented among the “somewhat disapprove” group.2) But conversely, half the voters who had somewhat approved of Trump’s performance moved to somewhat disapproving of him instead. (Most of these voters would probably be conservatives, who outnumber moderates in the “somewhat approve” group.) That would not be a good trade for Trump; his overall approval rating would fall to 34.1 percent while his disapproval rating would rise to 61.1 percent.

That doesn’t mean I have a better idea about what Trump and Kelly should do. As I mentioned, Trump’s base isn’t all that large, so doubling down on appeals to his base isn’t necessarily a great strategy either.

Trump does have the benefit of time; presidential approval ratings after six months in office aren’t very predictive of what those ratings will look like at election time. (Jimmy Carter was more popular than Ronald Reagan at this point in their respective terms, for example.) And given how political coalitions are currently constructed, Republicans have some structural advantages in the way seats and votes are distributed in both Congress and the Electoral College.

So Trump has every incentive to play the long game. If he were to really and truly pivot and sustain that new course, perhaps some of the 47 percent of voters who are currently in the “strongly disapprove” camp would eventually become reluctant supporters, after stopping in the “somewhat disapprove” category along the way.

But if Trump is looking for a short-term fix, a pivot probably won’t work. A sloppy attempt at a pivot — in which Trump loses conservative support faster than he gains support from moderates — could turn into one of his nightmare scenarios from the list of possible presidencies we imagined in February:

Trump flails around aimlessly after an unsuccessful attempt to pivot. In this scenario, Trump is like George Steinbrenner running the 1980s New York Yankees, firing his managers and changing course all the time without ever really getting anywhere. Instead, he churns through advisers and alienates allies faster than he makes new ones. In one version of the scenario, Trump attempts a Frum-ian pivot to the center but it fails — Congressional Republicans don’t go along with with the program, and it costs him credibility with his base more quickly than it wins him new converts. By early 2019, there are impeachment proceedings against Trump, and several Republicans are considering challenging him for the 2020 nomination. Trump winds up being something of a lame duck despite being in his first term, drawing comparisons to Jimmy Carter.

I’m not sure we’re on this path yet. But there are some signs of it. The recent downtick in Trump’s approval ratings — after a couple of months when his numbers were steady — coincides with a period where Trump is getting more scrutiny, both from Republicans in Congress and from the conservative media. These are measured steps — it’s not like Republicans have begun impeachment proceedings or Sean Hannity has abandoned Trump. But in his time as president so far, Trump has found more ways to lose supporters than to gain them.

Scaramucci Goes Off The Record

In an emergency politics mini-chat, we appraise the abbreviated tenure of former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief):