Voters ready to punish House candidates who won't stand up to Trump

Republicans have been getting trounced in special elections since Trump’s inauguration, and a new poll suggests that unless they start showing some spine, things will get a lot worse in November.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 48 percent of voters say they’re more likely to vote for a candidate who promises to provide a check on Trump, versus only 23 percent who say they’d be less likely to vote for such a candidate.

And 53 percent of voters say they are less likely to support a candidate who supports Trump most of the time. And every single House Republican has voted with Trump at least 90 percent of the time.

Voters are also factoring in the continuation of President Obama’s booming economy, with 63 percent saying they’re “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with the economy — while still wanting candidates to check Trump.

Even a four-point uptick in Trump’s approval rating, from 40 percent in April to 44 percent now, doesn’t help pro-Trump candidates with voters.

The GOP has already recognized they can’t run on an economic message, and they’ve abandoned their tax scam as a campaign strategy in favor of old-fashioned racism.

Yet for some reason, Republicans are slow to accept the fact they need to stand up to Trump, if not for moral and patriotic reasons, then at least for self-preservation. Very few Republican senators have supported a bill to protect the Russia investigation, and there’s been almost no resistance to Trump in the House.

Republicans are on the wrong side of voters on issues that matter most to them — things like health care, gun safety, and protecting Dreamers. But their biggest mistake could end up being on the wrong side of voters when it comes to Trump, and they’ve got very little time to correct it.