How the GOPs surprising unity boosts Trumps midterm odds

As they look to the midterm elections, Republicans have reason to worry — but not despair.They’re going to be fighting uphill all the way to hold onto their majority in the House, which they currently control by the razor-thin margin of just six seats.That includes one member, California Rep.Kevin Kiley, who officially left the GOP but still caucuses with the party. “Fragile” hardly does justice to the state of the GOP’s House majority.Democrats look at President Donald Trump’s approval ratings and exult.As of early May, exactly six months before the midterms, Trump’s approval in the RealClearPolitics polling averages was an anemic 40.7%, and since then, polls have shown him slipping further.Democrats took more than 40 House seats from the GOP in the 2018 midterms, when Trump’s numbers were a little better: RealClear’s aggregate notched him at 43.6% approval the day before the election.House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries is just counting down the days until he becomes speaker. What could go wrong?Two things might yet thwart Jeffries’ ambitions.One is the Supreme Court, which has overturned the race-based approach to drawing congressional districts that long served to protect Democratic incumbents and carve out blue seats in red states.The court also slapped down Democrats’ attempt to get the federal judiciary to toss out a Virginia Supreme Court decision that killed their dreams of gerrymandering away four Republican seats in that state.As things stand, when all the mid-decade redistricting across the country is finished, Republicans stand to gain up to 10 House seats.Though they have to remember all they’re actually getting are more Republican-leaning district maps — they still have to close the deal with voters.Even if they do, 10 more seats won’t stop a wave like the one that swept away the Republican House majority during Trump’s first term.Yet there’s a second barrier Democrats will have to overcome: Voters just don’t b...