Steven Greene N.C. State Political Science Professor
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A day after the Indiana Senate rejected President Donald Trump's contentious mid-decade redistricting proposal, warnings of political and financial retaliation escalated, including public threats that the Hoosier state could lose federal funding as punishment. Stephen Green is an NC State political science professor and he joins us now. Good for him. Stephen, how are you? Great. Good to be back with you. Good to talk to you. But was this at all surprising in some ways? I mean, I think so, in that a number of other states seemed quite ready to go along with Donald Trump on this request for the mid-decade redistricting and Indiana is known to be a very Republican state, so for them to be a roadblock was perhaps somewhat unexpected. It does continue, though, what's been a series of losses for President Trump here, Congress has rejected his health care plan before the administration can fully roll it out, his boat strides off the coast of Central and South America are facing congressional scrutiny, and then there's what Marjorie Taylor Greene has been doing as a play in saying to the public, actually being embraced by various folks who ordinarily would not embrace her. Are we entering 2026 with the Republican Party looking at Donald Trump as somewhat of a lame duck? I think to a degree, yes. And I don't know how much of it is a lame duck versus his approval, his popularity is simply down noticeably. And I believe, honestly, that if his approval was well above 50% that he probably would have gotten Indiana to do what he wanted, Marjorie Taylor Greene would not have been rebelling the same way, we wouldn't have the same pushback on the boat strikes, but his approval is closer to 40% and again has dropped pretty noticeably. And so to some degree, I think that leads people to feel a little bit more empowered to stand up against him. Is that because the economy is not doing well? I think so. I mean, a lot of it is just Americans are really frustrated with what a lot of people are calling the affordability crisis. But certainly the tariffs that President Trump has added have not helped with that. And as long as people are focused on prices and the cost of living, that territory that people are, I think, generally pretty frustrated with the president on. And 31% of Americans approve of this handling of the economy. If the GOP could figure out a candidate to replace him, this is now the most interesting thing because MAGA has been essentially the Republican Party for 10 years now ever since Donald Trump came down the escalator. The next chapter of the GOP is, who's going to be the next major figure for MAGA or if that's where they want to go to begin with? Oh, yeah. And as somebody who will be following this very closely, I mean, that's the $100,000 question. I think there's somewhat of a presumption of JD Vance just because he's the vice president. But it's also clear that he does not have, I would say, the innate political skills or political charisma of Donald Trump. And it's not at all obvious that certainly he could be a successor in name, but to be a genuine successor to really pull over the vast majority of Donald Trump supporters.
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