President Trump is weathering allegations of an affair with a porn star and a ham-handed cover up, even as his party in Congress moves perilously close to losing the House despite presiding over an accelerating economy that has reached near-full employment.

In the upside down of American politics, unemployment dropped to a staggeringly low 3.9 percent in April, but neither that nor other usually reliable political indicators are proving sufficient to protect House Republicans from an oncoming midterm buzzsaw.

Political strategists blame this phenomenon on Trump. The president is insulated from scandal because voters expected he might be a philanderer who distorts the truth when they elected him. But Trump’s foibles are landing like a crushing thud on Republicans in Congress, fueling Democratic enthusiasm and alienating disaffected Republicans.

“Today, for example, the lead story should the incredibly positive economic numbers. Instead, it’s about Trump and Giuliani. That’s not a bad story — that’s a horrible story,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Friday to the Washington Examiner. “To make matters worse, he repeatedly criticizes Congress without emphasizing that it's the Democrats who are blocking his agenda. His lack of partisan clarity could cost him control of the House in November.”

Luntz was referring to Rudy Giuliani, a member of Trump’s legal team. The former New York mayor sparked a media frenzy when he revealed on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program Wednesday that Trump, contrary to previous denials, was aware of attorney Michael Cohen’s payoff to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election to keep their alleged 2006 tryst out of the news.

Trump spent Friday walking back Giuliani’s admission, reiterating his denial of the affair and the payoff, and insisting the ex-mayor misspoke. There’s scant evidence that the episode will damage Trump. His job approval has climbed to the higher end of an average range that has fluctuated from the high 30s to mid 40s since the Stormy Daniels story broke, and now sits at 44.4 percent.

Democratic pollster Mark Mellman explained Trump’s resilience as the product of low expectations. “People have concluded that he's a liar,” he said in an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood. “He lies every day. People know it." Mellman added this crucial point: “The world hasn't come to an end … The world's looking a little better. There's some good news out there.”

There’s evidence that the media’s fixation on the sex scandal has boosted Trump in other ways, said Amy Walter, national editor of Cook Political Report, in a Twitter post. “The more media focused on Stormy et al, the more that: 1) Rs rally around POTUS, 2) issues Ds want/need to talk about like health care, can’t break thru.”

That rallying effect has materialized most in the ruby red states where Trump ran up big victory margins in 2016, and his strength there could help Senate Republicans pad their slim, 51-49 majority in November.

House Republicans aren’t so lucky. They’re defending nearly two-dozen seats that opposed Trump for president, plus other mostly suburban enclaves that traditionally vote Republican for Congress but are dispirited by his polarizing brand of cultural conservatism. The chaos and scandal engulfing the White House is a glaring reminder of their dissatisfaction, and threatens to wipe out their 23-seat advantage.

The April jobs report provided a golden opportunity to change the narrative in these districts, helping, Republicans connect the positive economy to their collective decision, with Trump, to enact tax reform over the unanimous opposition of the Democrats. But it wasted Friday, as it often has been, as Trump dominated the news with defense of his actions in the Stormy Daniels saga.

“It just shows clearly how much of an anchor Trump’s personality and abrasiveness are on his own accomplishments, and on the party,” veteran Democratic strategist Joe Trippi said.

Priorities USA, a Democratic super PAC, has warned Democrats to avoid hyping Trump’s character flaws and focus their campaigns on kitchen table issues. But a strategist with the group, Josh Schwerin, emphasized that the controversies surrounding the president nevertheless perform one crucial task for the Democrats as the elections approach.

“It reminds Democrats everyday that they don’t like him, and keeps them fired up to go vote,” Schwerin said. “Democrats are turning out at higher levels, and a lot of that is because they want that check on the president.”

The Democrats hold a critical edge on the measure of voter intensity, a crucial indicator in midterm contests, and have significantly over-performed in special elections. The party has flipped dozens of seats in state legislative elections, while markedly exceeding their typical partisan turnout in special elections for Congress, leading to two unlikely victories — one for Senate in Alabama, the other for the House in Pennsylvania.

The Democratic advantage on the generic ballot, gauging which party voters want in charge on Capitol Hill, sits at 6 points in the RealClearPolitics.com average, not a sure sign of a takeover but not far off, either. The Democrats probably need to see this lead hold steady at 8 points or higher to be in a more firm position to capture the House, and their failure to get there so far is keeping Republicans’ spirits up.

David Winston, a GOP pollster closely monitoring voter sentiment, said Republicans still have time to convince the electorate that their policies are working.

He said that voters haven't made up their mind yet about the economy — in particular, how it is impacting their pocketbooks. If voters conclude that their lives have improved, and Republicans can make the case that the change is due to their work in Washington, GOP majorities will be harder to dislodge.

“Stormy Daniels is not going to impact their lives," Winston added. "That’s not why they voted for Trump or didn’t vote for him. They voted for him on economy, and that’s how they’re going to evaluate the failure or success of his presidency."