The year that has followed the unique 2016 presidential election has resulted in an unusual situation in which the winner is polling badly and the loser even worse, Andrew Malcolm wrote in The Bellingham Herald on Wednesday.
Despite an economy that has grown nicely for six straight months, unemployment on a downward trend and the stock market at an all-time high, President Donald Trump's job approval is at only 38.7, a historically low figure for this stage of a presidency.
Making this an especially unique scenario is that the election's loser, whose poll numbers usually sink in the months after a elections before climbing back up, have gone down even further.
Hillary Clinton's approval rating is even worse than Trump's and is now at 36 percent after going down another 5 percentage points since the summer.
For much of the public Trump's good points are hard to see amid his petulance, firings, and needless quarrels, according to Malcolm
And voters have had 25 years of a controversial Hillary Clinton in the public eye, with recent months producing even more scandals surrounding her.
Although her book tour may have spurred sales, her frequent blame-shifting has reminded Americans of why they considered here an even less attractive candidate than a boorish billionaire.
Looking ahead, Malcolm said the Democrats remain a leaderless party, with the big names all past retirement age, with up-and-coming Democrats few and far between due to the demolishment of Democratic candidates at the state level during the eight years of the Obama administration.
Democrats face more obstacles ahead, Malcolm wrote. Even though the losing party in a presidential election year usually makes substantial congressional gains in midterms, the Democratic National Committee has raised only about half as much as the Republicans, making success in next November's elections all the more difficult.
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