The political earthquake many Republicans feared is showing up in hard numbers, and the reaction on “Morning Joe” made it clear just how jarring they are. A new Fox News poll — hardly a hostile outlet for Donald Trump — shows the president’s approval sinking and dragging the GOP down with him. The poll’s generic ballot test is brutal: Democrats at 55 percent, Republicans at 41 percent.
On Thursday morning, Joe Scarborough didn’t sugarcoat it. He looked almost stunned.
“I saw something yesterday, Willie [Geist] — generic ballot test. And we’ve been talking about how badly things have been going for Republicans over the past two, three, four weeks,” Scarborough said. “I will say, in all my years in politics… I’ve never seen this big of a spread. I’ve never seen one party with this high of a number. And I think you would probably have to go back to maybe post-Watergate days. This is staggering.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. A 14-point spread in a generic ballot a year out from midterms is the kind of number that forces party strategists into emergency meetings. It’s not just a warning sign — it’s a siren.
“A 14 point spread. That’s the generic ballot. The question is, if the midterms were held today — they’ll be a year from now — Who would you vote for? 55 percent of Americans say Democrats, 41 percent say Republicans — a massive split,” Scarborough said.
And it’s not happening in a vacuum. Trump’s base — the group once thought immovable — is showing signs of frustration and fatigue. The Fox News polling shows his approval sliding across multiple issue areas. For a party still overwhelmingly tied to him, that’s a problem with no easy fix.
Co-host Willie Geist jumped in to underscore just how loud the warning bells have become.
“Obviously, the alarm bells went off two weeks ago because of those elections in Virginia, New Jersey and places across the country. And now you’re seeing what Americans are saying is we’re not happy with the way things are going in this country right now,” Geist said.
If Republicans were hoping the off-year elections were just a bump in the road, this polling suggests something deeper: a sour national mood, a disgruntled conservative base, and a Democratic Party suddenly looking far more energized than expected.
Watch the segment below from MSNBC:
