In 2018, as in every midterm since Nancy Pelosi became House Minority Leader in 2003, the Republicans plan to use the San Francisco congresswoman as their prime nemesis—a noxious public avatar of the Democratic Party that they can parade around to rally their base. Unfortunately for the GOP, Pelosi may not be as effective a bogeywoman this year: Internal Republican polls show that she’s more popular than President Donald Trump.
As Bloomberg News reports:
President Trump likes to mock Nancy Pelosi, but a private survey conducted for the Republican National Committee finds that she’s actually more popular—and beats the president when the midterm election is framed as a contest between the two.
The internal poll, conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek, asks registered voters who they support “when the November election is framed by Trump and Pelosi.” Overall, respondents prefer Pelosi-aligned candidates over Trump-aligned candidates by 5 points, 50 percent to 45 percent. Among independents only, Pelosi still prevails by a 4-point margin.
The stereotype of Pelosi was set by the GOP as long ago as 2003, when The Los Angeles Times observed Republicans were “eager to attack Pelosi as a loopy San Francisco liberal and exploit her city’s reputation as the odd-sock drawer of America. Within days, her face—garish and twisted—showed up in an attack ad slamming the Democrat in a Louisiana House race. (He won anyway.) She surfaced as Miss America, complete with tiara, in a spoof on Rush Limbaugh’s Web site.”
The new polling shows that this image of Pelosi as an out-of-touch left-wing elitist only has traction among already committed Republicans. But for that reason, the GOP might still return to it, despite her relative popularity compared to Donald Trump. Republicans need to get their base out. Also, Pelosi still does worse than generic Democrats in polls (who lead over Republicans by 9 per cent, as against Pelosi’s lead of 5 per cent over Trump).
Nancy Pelosi isn’t really a convincing foil anymore, but she might be the best the GOP has.