by Susan Ferrechio | Apr 24, 2017
The non-partisan Cook Political report has rated 36 House GOP seats as "competitive," in the next general election, although only one of those,
the seat held by Rep. Darrell Issa, of California, is considered a toss-up and 26 GOP-held seats are considered "likely" to stay Republican.
President Trump's brief tenure in the White House hasn't done much to increase his dismal approval ratings. While Trump managed to win in November despite low poll numbers, House Republicans in 2018 may not be as lucky.
More than a year and a half away, the midterm elections could significantly weaken the GOP House majority or even result in a Democratic takeover.
Many believe
Trump's performance will help seal the GOP's fate.
"
History says Republicans should get beaten badly in 2018 because the president is not popular, Congress is not popular, and history says, that is what happens in those situations," Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, told the Washington Examiner.
Neither Trump nor the Republican-led House and Senate are faring well in the polls. A recent Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll showed
56 percent of U.S. voters disapprove of Trump's job performance. The results are more dismal for
Congress, which plummeted to a 20 percent approval rating in an April Gallup poll.
Brown and other pollsters argue it is too far out to use current polling to assess the GOP's election prospects for November 2018.
But there is evidence
Trump's low approval ratings may already be threatening the size of the House Republican majority, which stands now at 23 seats.
A race to fill the Georgia seat left vacant by Republican Tom Price when he took over as Health and Human Services secretary
was supposed to be a sure thing for the GOP.
Instead, Democrat Jon
Ossoff took 48 percent of the vote over a pack of four GOP candidates in a race that is now headed to a June 20 runoff.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-could-spell-trouble-for-gop-in-2018/article/2620678
