End of 2017: Is Trump favored to be re-elected?

[King Lear]

Yes, I believe he'll win all his 2016 states plus New Hampshie, Minnesota, Nevada, and Maine.

[King Lear]

He's incumbent and his base hasn't wavered that much.

Even Carter was favored despite the crappy numbers most of the way to 1980.

2020 is his to lose in nearly the same sense, and I expect such a thing, but nonetheless he is favored and Democrats could still overreach after midterm success in the same way the GOP did with Romney or Dole.

At least you admit the simple historical fact that all incumbents are favored for reelection no matter how bad they are, and in the case of Donald Trump, he’s probably more favored then most because of the massive polarization in modern American politics (90% of his voters would never leave him even if the economy crashed and World War 3 broke out), the fact most Democrats are concentrated in a small number of heavily populated, Safe Democratic States, like California, New York, and Illinois, while Republicans are spread everywhere else in smaller numbers thus dulluting the accuracy of national approval rating polling and making it easy for him to lose the popular vote and win the electoral college, and lastly the fact the Economy is booming and the Dow Jones could be at 40,000 by 2020 will encourage his base of Old, Wealthy, White people to turnout in droves for him (most of these people wold have doubled their 401ks) while the Democratic base of Young, Poor, Nonwhite people will stay home because most of them will still be poor even with a good economy (especially with Republicans gutting the safety net).

[King Lear]

Yes I'm aware this will trigger people. But no, Trump winning Michigan by 10,000 votes is not evidence he will lose there in 2020 lol. It's evidence the state (and the region as a whole) is trending right, and I've no reason to think that trend won't continue.

IMO 2020 will be the last time Arizona and Georgia go R due simply to their respective leans. Meanwhile, the Rust Belt has already gotten there. I honestly think Trump could lose by 3% and win the electoral college come 2020. And I doubt there will be a Dem capable of getting the 49 or 50% of the vote necessary to beat Trump in that scenario. 

You make a very accurate point about Michigan in that the long term problem for Democrats is that Rust Belt states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, and Iowa are trending away from them at an extremely rapid rate and if you don't believe me, let this sink in for a minute, in 2012 all those states I listed voted more Democratic then the nation by anywhere from 1-5 points with the exception of Ohio, while in 2016 every state I listed voted more Republican then the nation by anywhere from 1-11 points. Meanwhile the Sun belt is not trending towards the Democrats anywhere near as fast as the Rust Belt is trending Republican, for example Florida voted 3 points more Republican then the nation in 2012 (Obama won the state by 1 point), and in 2016 it still voted 3 points more Republican then the nation (Trump won the state by 1 point), North Carolina voted 6 points more Republican then the nation in 2012 (Romney won the state by 2 points), and in 2016 it still voted 6 points more Republican then the nation (Trump won the state by 4 points), meanwhile Arizona, Georgia, and Texas voted 6, 7, and 11 points more Republican then the nation in 2016 which is less Republican-leaning then they were in 2012 but still nowhere near being truly competitive. Finally, what all this means is that Democrats could find themselves in a situation where they can't win the Rust Belt because it's trended to far away from them, while at the same time they can’t win the Sun Belt because it's not trending towards them fast enough.

[King Lear]

IMO, the main thing that needs to happen for Trump to be re-elected is that the HOUSE needs to go Democratic, but not the Senate.

With the tax bill passed, Trump has a win under his belt that will give workers more money in their paychecks, something that people will notice in a positive way over the next year.  But the tax bill also repealed the OCare mandate, which will drive up premiums, making some kind of OCare reform necessary.  The House as currently constituted will never agree to that, because Paul Ryan and the Freedom Caucus are ideologically opposed to OCare's existence. 

Give the House to the Dems and you've got a legislative body that will pass a watered down version of OCare that can then be taken up by the cynical pragmatists in Mitch McConnell's Senate.  Trump can then take credit for cutting taxes and saving health care reform, similar to the way Bill Clinton ate his vegetables by raising taxes during his first two years in office and then moved to the center with welfare reform the second two years (while claiming that his tax bill was responsible for the good economy by closing the deficit).

The Senate needs to stay in Republican hands though because otherwise we just get stalemate as the Democratic Congress waits Trump out.  Also, a Republican Senate is needed to give confirmation to another SCOTUS Justice should a vacancy arise.  The GOP doesn't need a fight over a SCOTUS seat making abortion an issue during the 2020 election, when they can win on the economy and domestic issue reform.

If I were an RNC strategist right now, I'd be secretly taking a knee on winning the House in 2018 while pouring money into red state Senate races.

This is a very interesting analysis, I’ve always thought their was a realistic scenario where Republicans lose the house, hold the senate, and Trumps still reelected due to the good economy and his massive advantage in the electoral college. I call this the “Obama scenario”, which is quite Ironic considering how much Trump despises him.