Second, President Trump doesn't have to go up for re-election next year. In 2018, all 240 Republicans in the House of Representatives and eight GOP Republican senators are up for re-election. Their time to turn this situation around is exactly 50 percent smaller than President Trump's.
And don't think that Trump can't use that time to recover politically even if the GOP Congress falters. That's what Bill Clinton did after his party lost control of Congress in 1994. A big part of that loss was connected to Clinton's failed health-care-reform effort. He seemed to do better as a deal-maker with then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich on one hand and also as a representative of the common man during the Republican government shutdown of 1995-96. And he won re-election in 1996 by wider margins in both the Electoral College and popular vote than he did in 1992.
President Barack Obama still won re-election in 2012 after the Democrats were routed from control of the House in 2010. And that loss was also health-policy related as the public wasn't happy with Obamacare even though it actually passed. Even Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer now says passing Obamacare in 2010 was a political mistake for the Democrats.
In both cases, those presidents seem to appeal more to the American public as a foil to a Congress controlled or mostly controlled by the opposing party. And anyone who knows President Trump's combative nature has to recognize that he could thrive in such an atmosphere as well.
But that's all about a presidency with no coattails. President Trump's call on Tuesday for the public to elect more Republicans to Congress in order to get an Obamacare-replacement bill passed isn't likely to help the GOP incumbents at all. Remember that the public is responding to health-coverage bills it doesn't like, not playing partisan team sports. Health-care failures or perceived failures are documented poison for the parties in power in Congress. The GOP is headed for the same fate in 2018 unless a bill that's actually popular with the public passes, and that's becoming more of a long shot every day.
President Trump has broken a lot of traditional rules in American politics, but don't be surprised if he comes out relatively unscathed from this health bill debacle. Everyone else has much more to worry about.
Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist. Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.
For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.