RINO Jeff Flake’s tanking numbers offer priceless lesson for GOP

Senator Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. — who has upset both liberals and conservatives this week with his new (mistitled) book — is struggling, as he sits with a meager 18 percent approval rating among Arizona voters.

Recent results from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling show that a whopping 62 percent of Arizonans disapprove of Senator Flake. Among self-identified Republicans, only 22 percent approve of the senator, with 57 percent disapproving. Forty-one percent of respondents self-identified as Republicans, 34 percent as Democrats, and 25 percent as independents or “other.”

It is a very bad omen for any aspirations the senator may have regarding reelection. If the 2018 midterms were to be held today, only 31 percent of those polled said they would support Flake for reelection, compared to 47 percent who would support the generic Democrat nominee. Twenty-two percent answered “undecided” in that hypothetical.

Tellingly, 47 percent of those polled said they voted for Donald Trump in 2016 (versus 42 percent who said they voted for Hillary Clinton).

There is a lesson in all this for Senator Flake (and most all GOP officials).

Liberal voters merely hate the senator because of the “R” next to his name. The end game, for most Democrats, is control of Congress to impeach the president.

But the fact that a majority of Republicans disapprove of Flake speaks to his inconsistent (if not liberal) legislative record in the Senate. Refusing to defund Obamacare, assisting President Obama with the Iran nuclear deal, and voting for the Gang of Eight amnesty bill is a recipe for conservative backlash and abandonment.

Editor's note: The headline of this piece has been changed to better reflect its content.