From “This is how we know Republicans are terrified they’ll lose the Senate” by Emily Singer ate Daily Kos: “A super PAC tied to Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced its midterm spending plan Monday, saying it plans to reserve $342 million in television advertising to preserve the GOP’s Senate majority…SLF [the GOP’s “Senate Leadership Fund”] is spending nearly 70% of its money in GOP-held seats. And not just GOP-held seats, but seats in states that President Donald Trump won by wide margins in 2024—a signal of just how bad the midterms are shaping up for the GOP…Indeed, the biggest chunk of ad reservations—a whopping $79 million—is in Ohio…Yes, Ohio, which Trump won by nearly 12 points in 2024 but—thanks to Trump’s sinking popularity—is looking like a competitive state this fall…GOP Sen. Jon Husted is facing voters in this seat for the first time, as he was appointed in January 2025 when JD Vance became vice president. Whoever wins the race—whether it’s Husted or likely Democratic nominee and former Sen. Sherrod Brown—will serve the remainder of Vance’s term, which expires in January 2029…Putting the most money into this Ohio race shows that the political environment is so bad for Republicans that they now fear losing a Senate seat in a red state…The second largest segment of ad reservations is in North Carolina, where Republicans are defending an open seat left vacant by retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis…SLF said that it reserved $71 million in airtime for the race, which is looking seriously grim for the GOP—even though Democrats haven’t won a federal statewide race in North Carolina since 2008.”

In “Trump’s working-class support is waning,” Jared Abbott and Dustin Guastella write at The Guardian: “A new survey offers some novel insight into Trump’s corroding coalition…The survey, which I (Abbott) conducted with the scholar and author Joan C Williams, sampled about 1,940 Trump voters and captured the attitudes of the broad coalition that brought Trump to the White House in 2024. Respondents were asked if they intended to vote Republican in the 2028 presidential election and, in particular, their views on immigration – Trump’s strongest issue…The results paint a bleak picture for Republicans (but not necessarily a rosy one for the Democrats). The survey finds that approximately 20% of 2024 Trump voters may not vote Republican in 2028, and that almost 57% of voters who switched from Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024 are considering abandoning the Republican party in 2028. Many among the much-talked-about group of voters that gave him the edge he needed to win the popular vote – working-class, blue-collar voters and lower-income moderates – are now on the fence…The bulk of the now-uncertain Trump voters come from the lower end of the class hierarchy. About 31% of the lowest-income 2024 Trump voters are wavering in their support. Compare that to just 12.7% of those earning more than $200,000. We see a weaker, though still clear, pattern when it comes to education. While 31.8% of Trump voters without a high school diploma and 20% with less than a college education are wavering, that number drops to 17.6% among those with at least a four-year college degree…Put simply, Trump’s coalition is most stable at the top and most fragile at the bottom.” More here.

Alicia Civita’s “Trump Loses His Grip on White Working-Class Voters as Support Turns Negative – NEW POLL” at The Latin Times notes the following: “President Donald Trump has slipped underwater with one of the most important blocs in his political coalition, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, which found his net approval among white working-class voters turned negative for the first time in his second term…The survey, conducted March 26 to March 30 among 1,201 adults, showed Trump at 49% approval and 50% disapproval with white non-college voters, a narrow but politically notable reversal for a group that helped drive his return to the White House…The shift matters because white working-class voters have long been central to Trump’s electoral strength. As recently as February, CNN’s polling still showed him above water with that group. According to the CNN/SSRS trendline, Trump was at 54% approval and 46% disapproval among white working-class voters in February, after posting similarly positive numbers in January and late 2025. By early April, that cushion had disappeared…The erosion comes at a moment when Trump is facing broad public frustration on the economy, historically one of his strongest issues. A separate CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that his approval rating on the economy fell to a new career low of 31%. Roughly two-thirds of Americans said Trump’s policies had worsened economic conditions in the United States, and only 27% said they approved of his handling of inflation, down sharply from 44% a year earlier…The same polling period also captured growing skepticism about Trump’s handling of the war with Iran…Just one-third of Americans believe Trump has a clear plan for the conflict, while only 34% said they approved at least somewhat of the U.S. decision to take military action in Iran. That was down seven points from a CNN poll taken just after the war began.”

The full reverberations of Trump’s dark Easter message probably won’t be clear for a while. But when the President of the United States, who once was called ‘the leader of the free world,’ insults the world’s two largest religions (Christians were about 28 percent of all the world’s people in 2025 and Muslims are about 24 percent, but growing much faster) and threatens war crimes that will kill innocent people, unless his demands are met in a couple of days, there is a cost  to the U.S. in terms of our credibility in international politics. It’s hard to see how any country would trust America to be for peace or want to enter into an alliance with a country that can’t reject war crimes as an acceptable policy of international relations. In terms of travel, can any American feel completely safe when traveling abroad? Mark Twain once said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” What then can be said about a decrease in travel? And how much confidence can we have that Trump’s bombing Iran and Easter threats won’t invite terrorism in the U.S. in the years ahead? It also means fewer people coming to the U.S. In Suzanne Rowan Kelleher reports at Forbes magazine that “Last month [January}, the U.S. saw steep declines in visitors from Asia (down 7.5%) and Europe (down 5.2%) year over year, according to the data…A 22% year-over-year decline in Canadian travelers cost the American economy $4.5 billion in 2025—and they show no sign of returning in 2026…Airline bookings from Europe to the U.S. for the peak of summer are down over 14% year-over-year, according to data from Cirium, a leading provider of aviation analytics.”