CNN polling analyst Harry Enten has done a rundown of recent polling numbers related to President Donald Trump’s government shutdown and has concluded that the president is doomed to only become more unpopular no matter how the shutdown ends.
Among other things, he finds that polls have consistently shown that the majority of the public blames Trump and the GOP — and not congressional Democrats — for keeping the government shut down.
“One move the President could decide to take to help his own standing is to push harder on the shutdown,” Enten says. “Yet, the longer the shutdown goes, and the harder Trump has pushed his position, the more Americans are blaming him for it.”
Enten also finds that all of the options available to Trump will make him more unpopular. Agreeing to a deal with Democrats to provide some wall funding in exchange for a path to citizenship for DACA recipients will likely anger his base, Enten argues, while declaring a national emergency to fund the wall would create an even bigger blowback from a wide swathe of voters.
And keeping the government shut down indefinitely will simply continue to erode his standing with the American public, Enten says.
“So basically, Trump has nowhere to go,” Enten concludes. “There is no option that pleases Americans as a whole and, at the time, his base. Someone is going to be angry at him no matter what he does.”