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I think what’s going on now is that we’re seeing the impact of 90% negative coverage of the Trump administration of the last year.

The vast majority of voters (and most non-voters) just don’t pay close attention to politics between elections. They gain impressions of what’s going on from the news they pick up incidentally from scanning their screens or hearing bits and pieces from their televisions and from people around them. They don’t go looking for political news; what news they get finds them.

And if 90% of major news stories are negative, you can expect most voters to be affected. Democrat-leaning voters hear Trump is an ass and get incensed. GOP-leaning voters hear Trump is an ass and get defensive with some just tuning out what they’re hearing.

The result is what we saw in Wisconsin (and probably in Alabama too). The Democrats are angry and come out to vote. The GOP voters are turned off by the whole mess and stay home.

Note that I’m not saying Trump has created a mess; I’m saying that 90% of what people are hearing and seeing is that it’s a mess.

This will change somewhat when we have a general election and people are paying more attention, but President Trump has a responsibility too, one that I expect he’ll take seriously as November nears. He has to make certain that he’s appearing in more and more situations where he is in charge and where good things are being accomplished for the average voter.

If the economy is still going strong, and the extent of the personal tax cuts have become obvious to people, as they should, then President Trump can help to motivate voters by making a lot of appearances that are more presidential in nature, and less campaign-like. The media will have to cover him, so he has that advantage. What he says and how he acts will get coverage. He just has to make it difficult to frame it negatively, much like his recent meeting in the Oval Office.