Abbreviated pundit roundup: Trumptimism versus hopeium

Susan B Glasser/New Yorker:

Is There a Serious Case for a Not-Awful Election for Democrats This Fall?

One strategist’s “Trumptimism” is another’s “hopium.”

After hearing [Simon] Rosenberg’s case, I called Amy Walter, the editor-in-chief of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, for a reality check. She joked that there’s nothing wrong with “taking a hit of the hopium.” But Walter and others are not ready to abandon the laws of political physics just yet. “All the fundamentals are telling us not that much has changed,” she told me. “There is not a blue wave, no. The question is: How big is the red wave?” On Thursday, the Cook Political Report moved its prediction for control of the Senate from favoring the G.O.P. to a tossup; Walter still sees Republicans taking the House.

It’s not that Walter thinks Trump is a positive for Republicans. The question, in a midterm election, is more about how much he really matters. Republicans have been betting that voters are “more upset about gas prices than Donald Trump,” she told me. They may yet be right.