The reckoning: Inside the GOP’s escalating panic over Trump voters

To put it mildly, the Democrats have had a complicated relationship with the white working class at least since passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But things are going to be simple in the run up to November's midterm elections. Democrats don't need to offer much. White working-class voters who supported Donald Trump are probably going to stay home. “I don’t even want to vote for anybody in the next election,” Annette Dombrowski told the Post last month . The 64-year-old janitor in rural Ohio voted for the president three times. She used to vote in the midterms, but not this time. “I don’t care, because they’re all crap.” Dombrowski represents an " extraordinary swing ," as the Times put it last week. Though his unpopularity, especially among affluent white women, hurt the GOP in the 2018 midterms, white working-class voters stood by their man. They approved of Trump's "management of the economy by margins of 30 percentage points or even more," the Times said. Now, however, as inflation climbs ever higher, his base is falling out from beneath him. The Times : "Now, recent polls show them disapproving by anywhere from 14 to more than 30 points." That's why a GOP pollster who has worked with Trump is sounding downright panicked. “It’s working-class voters who are not happy with the Republican Party, and they may not come out and vote,” John McLaughlin told the Times . The day before the 2018 midterms, Trump's approval rating on the economy among white working-class voters was 66 percent, according to a CNN poll. Now, his disapproval is 57 percent , a recent CNN poll said. If the Republicans fail to mobilize them, McLaughlin said, "we lose the House and the Senate.” Despite the odds being in their favor, I don't think...