MIKE GOES TO THE MIKE – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:  Mike Pence has been on the move recently.  The vice president will be in Iowa this weekend, shoring up the Republican base.  The Trump/Pence base seems solid, but there are areas of discontent.  From AP: 

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence is trying to solidify the Republican base in Iowa, where some conservatives complain President Donald Trump has much to prove and party leaders say he’s being undermined from within.

Headlining Sen. Joni Ernst’s annual summer fundraiser, Pence will promote steady job numbers under Trump, who campaigned last year on promises of economic growth.

But it’s Pence’s boss who has more work to do to satisfy Iowa’s disproportionately influential Christian right, despite carrying Iowa by 9 percentage points in the 2016 election after Democrat Barack Obama won there in 2008 and 2012.

“I’m still waiting to see a conservative agenda put forward,” said Iowa Republican Kay Quirk, a retired nurse from the socially conservative northwest region of the state. “I haven’t given up hope by any means. But I’m still waiting.”

Chiefly, Quirk and other Iowa conservatives are bothered that Trump has not delivered on the promise to repeal the 2010 health care law. But that’s not all. Mike Demastus, a pastor from Des Moines, pointed to Trump’s announcement Thursday that he would keep, at least for now, the U.S. Embassy in Israel in Tel Aviv. Trump promised during the campaign last year to move the embassy to Jerusalem, the place most closely associated with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

“When it comes to moral issues, he hasn’t moved the needle one notch,” Demastus said.

It’s not as if there is a revolt brewing within the Iowa GOP.

Republicans control both houses of the Iowa Legislature, the governor’s office, both U.S. Senate seats and three of four House seats. Trump also chose Iowa’s longtime Republican governor, Terry Branstad, to be his ambassador to China.

And the vast majority of Iowa Republicans approve of the job Trump is doing. Surveys this year have shown Trump’s job approval among Republicans around 85 percent, about the same as it is nationally.

COMMENT:  There's something else here.  Mike Pence is, understandably, popular among Republicans, and he's strengthening his own constituency, while becoming better known to the general public.  If the current probes don't go well for Trump and he's forced from office, as was Nixon, Pence will have ready-made support as he moves into the presidency.  We hope Trump will be fine, but you never know.

June 3,  2017