via San Francisco Chronicle by Joe Garofoli
All that talk of a Democratic blue wave sweeping congressional races in California could be for naught if a new poll is on target: It shows President Trump’s approval rating surging to 50 percent in Orange County, site of four tight races that could determine if Republicans hold the House.
A more popular Trump is bad news for Democrats, who are trying to grab seven GOP-held congressional districts statewide that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, including the four in Orange County. That would give Democrats a big jump on their goal of flipping 23 seats nationally to regain the House.
Democrats are banking on the president’s unpopularity to help them win those seats. In April, the nonpartisan Berkeley IGS Poll indicated that Trump had just 38 percent support in Orange County. A March poll from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California indicated that a mere 36 percent of all adults in Orange and San Diego counties approved of the president.
Two months ago, Republican pollster John Thomas did a survey in Orange County that found Trump’s approval rating at 43 percent. But last week, his poll of 450 likely voters in the county showed that 50 percent of respondents viewed the president favorably. The margin of error was three percentage points.
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