Yet paradoxically, Trump's low approval ratings represent less political danger for congressional Republicans than Obama's much higher numbers posed for Democrats. That's true for the same reason that polling correctly showed Trump losing the 2016 popular vote, but did not block his path to the presidency. Trump remains largely popular with white voters, and the states and districts that will hold competitive midterm elections in 2018 are more white than the country as a whole.

According to the new poll, while Trump is badly underwater among all voters, 52 percent of white voters say they approve of his handling of the transition. Twenty-seven percent strongly approve.

That matters because to win back the Senate or the House, Democrats need to gain seats in districts that are whiter than what they have now. Trump's home state of New York is a good example. Unlike most Midwestern states, where the 2011 wave of gerrymanders shored up Republicans, New York has a fairly balanced map born out of a partisan compromise. Trump carried nine of New York's 27 congressional districts, but that included six that had, in 2012, voted for Obama. New York's population overall is about 58 percent white. But the districts won by Trump, from Long Island to Plattsburgh to the suburbs of Buffalo, are 73 percent white on average.

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It's the same story in Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania — states that were gerrymandered by Republican legislatures and governors in 2011 to pack Democrats, often meaning nonwhite voters, into as few voting districts as possible. And it's a similar story in bluer states where, in the past, Democrats have built majorities. Minnesota is about 83 percent white, but the six districts carried by Trump are even whiter — about 88 percent. Illinois is 63 percent white, but the seven districts won by Trump — including one held by Democratic Rep. Cheri Bustos and one held until 2014 by Democrats — average 83 percent white.

In 2008, Obama won the vast majority of congressional districts, even in states that had been drawn in 2001 to elect a maximum number of Republicans. Two years into his term, on Election Day 2010, the national exit poll gave Obama an approval rating of 45 percent, higher than Trump has seen since he won the presidency. But Republicans dominated with white voters, winning 62 percent of them — up from 55 percent in 2008. Obamas's high and loyal approval ratings with nonwhite voters simply did not pack the same punch, as most were clustered in safe seats, a situation that has grown even more so since the 2011 gerrymander.

The 2016 election also heightened the extremes, with Democrats getting mowed down in rural, white America, but gaining ground in suburbs. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won two Pennsylvania districts in the Philadelphia suburbs that had voted for Mitt Romney in 2012; she gained massive ground in the suburbs of Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and San Diego, and was the first Democrat to win California's Orange County since Franklin D. Roosevelt. The “emerging Democratic majority” seen or not seen by demographers may come out of those suburbs.