THE CULTURE WARS ARE A ROUT:

The culture wars aren't working for Donald Trump.

His law-and-order rhetoric isn't registering with suburban voters. One of his leading evangelical supporters, Jerry Falwell Jr., was just photographed with his zipper down. Immigration isn't provoking the response it did in 2016, and NASCAR has spurned the president.

Even an attempt by a New York Democrat to take down the National Rifle Association -- a lawsuit announced Thursday by state Attorney General Letitia James -- looks unlikely to juice Trump's reelection hopes. [...]

Frank Miniter, editor in chief of the NRA publication America's First Freedom, raised the alarm for members in a column last week. Citing research by a firearms trade association, he lamented that "only 17% of gun owners in the survey said 'gun-related issues' were one of their three top policy areas going into this election (15% did say 'crime' and 18% said 'civil rights')."

The culture wars of old, said Paul Maslin, a top Democratic pollster who worked on the presidential campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean, seem "miles away from where this election is right now."

Gun control and other cultural issues, he said, "are always a backdrop and a way for Trump to maintain his base. But again, his base is 42 percent. Where's the other 5 to 6 percent he needs going to come from?"

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