https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/a-gop-congressman-from-kentucky-wonders-is-this-trump-thing-sustainable/2017/05/20/1cbd5374-3c16-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.99b0b8151fc3&wpisrc=nl_most-draw16&wpmm=1

Comer was a freshman lawmaker who had been sent to Washington with 73 percent of the vote, figuring he knew absolutely what people wanted from him. Over the past few weeks, though, it was becoming harder to tell. On social media after the health-care vote, people warned him his career was “going up in flames.” By the time he left Washington, where he slept on a mattress in his office and watched CNN every night, he was starting to think, “This Trump thing may not be sustainable.”

That’s what he wanted to find out on this trip home: Was this Trump thing sustainable or not? Was Trump still popular here? Had he lost this part of Kentucky?

Comer’s congressional district is a horseshoe across the southern part of the state, 6 ½ hours by car end-to-end, that is 90 percent white and where nearly 1 in 5 people live in poverty, more than 1 in 6 are disabled, and 72 percent voted for Trump. Maybe it was a rookie mistake, but Comer had pledged after the election to hold a town hall in every one of his 35 counties; to keep his word, he packed every recess with events — including the one he was driving to now, in Benton, Ky., when his cellphone buzzed.

His district director, who was already at the courthouse, was on the line.

“How bad is it?” Comer asked.

He listened for a moment

“Like 100?” he said.

Another pause.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Is the sheriff’s office there?”