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.
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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:...
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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.
