President Donald Trump might suddenly find himself in the situation he’s so far managed to avoid: having his own party hold him to account.
Trump tried very hard in recent weeks to cajole and browbeat Republicans into rejecting a push for the release of documents related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, without success. He intimated that he would oppose them in GOP primaries, finding that this once-potent threat wasn’t enough to inspire loyalty.
Unlike most past chief executives, Trump’s power depends on strict loyalty from congressional Republicans. He’s pushed — and flown past — traditional boundaries of presidential power largely because Congress won’t do anything about it. No more than a handful of Republicans tried to hold him to account when he stoked a violent attack on the results of the 2020 presidential contest. You think they’re going to vote to impeach because he’s stealing their authority to raise and spend revenue?
Epstein is not the only issue on which Trump has faced headwinds of late.
That loyalty has depended on the perception that Trump holds enormous power; specifically, power over the Republican electorate. But Epstein is not the only issue on which Trump has faced headwinds of late: As inflation and prices remain high, he has struggled to convince Americans there are no affordability issues. His suggestion last week that skilled immigrants are necessary workers roiled his MAGA base.
The White House is aware of these glimmers of weakness, as Axios has reported. It would be hard for the administration not to be, even if staffers continue curtailing their media consumption to friendly outlets. After all, even Fox News, citing its own (bipartisan) polling, reports that Americans hold broadly negative views of Trump.
In its poll, Trump’s overall approval is at a record low. That extends to the economy, once Trump’s strength. A plurality of Americans told Fox pollsters that the president’s economic policies have hurt them, with even most Republicans declining to say his policies have helped.
Source: Fox News polling.
This echoes other polling, showing that Trump’s approval rating has dropped alongside confidence in his handling of the economy. In YouGov polling for The Economist, most Americans disapprove of Trump’s efforts on jobs and the economy, including 44% this month who strongly disapprove. The economy was the central predicate for his reelection, you’ll recall, and now is Trump’s worst issue.
Now consider that point from the perspective of a Republican legislator. If your theory of the case is that Trump won reelection in 2024 in part or in whole because Americans were frustrated with how the incumbent party handled prices and the economy, these polls are essentially informing Republicans that they’re headed into a midterm massacre. New data from Marist Poll, conducted for NPR and PBS NewsHour, makes that point explicitly: Democrats have a double-digit advantage when Americans are asked which party they plan to back in next year’s House races.
Electoral politics aside, perhaps the most notable finding from Fox News’s (again, bipartisan) pollsters is that Americans feel as though federal leadership isn’t doing enough to keep Trump in check. A majority of Americans (including majorities of Democrats and independents) said that they were concerned that both Congress and the Supreme Court — the two other equal branches of government — were giving up too much of their constitutional authority to Trump.
Source: Fox News polling.
Asked to evaluate Trump’s main complaint about the balance of powers, that judges were doing too much to constrain him, a majority of Americans disagreed. Most Democrats and independents said they were not too or not at all concerned about judges limiting Trump’s authority. Notably, a third of Republicans, some 36%, agreed. In fact, a third of Republicans said they were concerned Congress and the Supreme Court have ceded too much authority to Trump. That is, for every two Republicans who approve of the judicial and legislative branches rolling over for the president, there’s a Republican who doesn’t. Polling conducted by NORC for the Associated Press found similar discontent: Nearly a quarter of Republicans said that Trump had gone too far in his deployment of power. Source: AP-NORC poll. If you’re a Republican legislator looking to win your party’s nomination for reelection next year, sticking with Trump on his expansion of authority is still the safer bet. But you might not want to bank on Trump delivering the primary, when voters are skeptical of his handling of the economy and a big chunk of the base expresses concern about his gobbling up power. So if you’re Trump, someone whose authority depends on those legislators staying in line, you suddenly have some serious reason for concern. It only took a handful of Republicans flipping on Trump for the Epstein files, and that was before they knew they might be able to get away with it. What happens when other opportunities for creating space between themselves and an unpopular president emerge over the next few months? The aura of omnipotence that’s so crucial to Donald Trump’s second term is suddenly starting to pale.
Philip Bump is a data journalist and MS NOW contributor. 
