Dem 47
image description
   
GOP 53
image description

Among Republicans, Musk Is Almost as Popular as Trump

If the fight between Donald Trump and Elon Musk lights up again, Trump has to be careful. If he wants to get rid of the DOGEys, he has to be careful about how he does it. For example, he could move the main office of DOGE to Fairbanks, AK, and transfer all the DOGEys there, rather than firing them. Then their rallying cry would be "Mush!" instead of "Musk!" The reason he has to be careful is that Musk is very popular with Trump's base.

In a recent Economist/YouGov poll, Musk's approval rating among Republicans was 76%, only 11 points lower than Trump's own 87% approval rating and only 4 points below J.D. Vance's 80% approval rating. Messing with a guy who is only slightly less popular than Trump himself needs to be done subtly and subtle is not Trump's strong suit. By way of comparison, only 15% of Democrats approve of Musk. In case you missed it, when Musk trashed Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) as a "disgusting abomination," very few Republican politicians went after him. They understood that he is very popular with the base.

The reason for Musk's popularity is not because lots of Republicans have Teslas. It is because many of them (90%) deeply believe in cutting the size of the government. He is also a larger-than-life figure, a combination of William Randolph Hearst and Howard Hughes, with a huge power center of his own, separate from the official Republican Party. Musk's 220 million followers on eX-Twitter dwarf the 9 million that Trump has on his boutique social media site. And, of course, Musk has enough money to fund a primary opponent to every Republican who votes for the OBBB, should he decide to do that. Even if he doesn't plan to right now, Trump knows that he could. Musk took quite a beating in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, but that was a partisan general election. Funding one Republican over another in a primary is a whole different kettle of fish.

In short, Trump can take various actions against Musk, but he has to be careful not to rile the South African too much. The President threatened to cancel the contracts with SpaceX and Starlink, but those are idle threats since no other company is capable of jumping in and doing the work right now, not even Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. There are things Trump could do to hurt Musk below the belt radar, though. He could have many government departments vigorously enforce existing laws, especially in cases where Musk's companies are already under investigation. Musk sees the future of Tesla as operating a fleet of self-driving taxis. Trump could create regulations making that impossible. Trump could kill off tax credits for electric cars, battery plants, and charging stations to hurt the sales of electric cars. He could push for a road tax on them. On the space front, he could offer subsidies to Blue Origin to get it to the point where it can compete successfully with SpaceX for government contracts. And much more. All of this stuff is in the weeds and Musk's fans would never know about it, but Musk sure would. (V)



This item appeared on www.electoral-vote.com. Read it Monday through Friday for political and election news, Saturday for answers to reader's questions, and Sunday for letters from readers.

www.electoral-vote.com                     State polls                     All Senate candidates