THE last president facing re-election troubles like Donald Trump’s was Jimmy Carter in 1980. Injured by recession and impotent against a national crisis, Carter lost big.
To describe the current incumbent’s predicament, substitute Trump’s botched coronavirus response for Carter’s inability to free American hostages seized by Iran. Then look at the numbers.
Today, Trump’s national polling deficit of around 10 percentage points matches Carter’s popular vote deficit against Ronald Reagan — who won a 44-state landslide while fellow Republicans seized control of the Senate.
Yet, just over a week from Election Day, few political analysts are prepared to say that points toward overwhelming defeat for Trump and his party on November 3, for three reasons.
Trump’s base keeps him afloat
The first is the sturdiness of the narrow Trump political base, centered on less-educated, rural, evangelical and blue-collar Whites.
Elected in 2016 with just 46.1% of the vote, the President
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