
Trump could not hollow out his own party more effectively if he tried.

Identifying as a Republican is massively unfashionable these days.

That's the finding of the latest Gallup poll, which shows that the number of people who identify as Republican has cratered since the election of Donald Trump:

What Trump has done to the Republican Party and what Republicans have done to themselves: a 5-point drop in the percent of Americans who identify as Republican. Another harbinger of bad things to come electorally for GOP in 2018. pic.twitter.com/GLILQDFMxB — Geoff Garin (@geoffgarin) December 4, 2017


Democrats have, in most Gallup polls, outnumbered Republicans since the mid-Obama years. But the 5-point drop in GOP identification since 2016 is an ominous sign for Republicans as they struggle to hold onto the House in next year’s midterms.

To a large degree, Trump surely bears responsibility — his juvenile outbursts on Twitter, aggressive pandering to white nationalism, and hard-right social policy do little to attract mainstream voters to the Republican Party.

But Trump cannot claim all the credit. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both routinely poll worse than he does — and the congressional GOP’s relentless attempts to strip people of health insurance and raise taxes on working families to pay for billionaire tax breaks have been met with widespread outrage.

All the signs indicate that a massive storm is brewing against the Republican Party — and they have no one to blame but themselves.