President Trump is about as popular as Yucca Mountain. The GOP Obamacare repeal effort is at Ramsay Bolton approval levels. And the Republicans at the top of the ticket are either immensely vulnerable or relatively unknown.

2018 is shaping up as a year in which the Democrats could flip a U.S. Senate seat and install one of their own in the governor’s mansion. But it may be a mirage.

For the Democrats, their primary problem is….a primary problem. Or should I say problems.

Everything seemed to be coming up Rosen in the Senate race against Dean Heller, but there is a Titus fly in the anointment. And even though Team Reid has settled on Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak for governor, there’s a G-Woman in the background who might just make a federal case of the race.

If the Democrats end up with serious primaries in both of the top-ticket contests – and self-funding Democrat Steve Cloobeck may yet run for governor, too -- the chances of a Gov. Adam Laxalt and re-elected Sen. Heller will exponentially increase. I suppose someone could argue that both Laxalt and Heller start out as small favorites because they are statewide incumbents. But with the overall atmospherics tilting toward the Democrats, who also have a 6 percent statewide registration edge, the party’s optimism about repealing and replacing The Great Disaster of 2014 seems justified.

That could all be vitiated, though, if Rep. Dina Titus challenges her much-junior colleague, Jacky Rosen, for the U.S. Senate nomination, and if Sisolak’s commission compatriot, Chris Giunchigliani, takes him on for the right to take on Laxalt. Yes, Laxalt may have a primary of his own with mercurial Treasurer Dan Schwartz, but how serious that would be would depend on whether the latter has more money to spend than Faraday Future. And Heller may face a challenge from the right – paging Danny Tarkanian – but that is far from a certainty.

The potential Democratic primaries seem much more likely to be problematic than any GOP internecine conflicts might be because both Titus and Giunchigliani would be at worst even odds to win those contests. The unresolved question is whether either could win a statewide general election.

What’s most interesting about these two women is that neither of them will be as susceptible to the usual scare tactics – the anointed getting the requisite endorsements secured by the Powers That Be Reid. Yes, both are smart, experienced pols who can read a survey. But neither will take well to being patted on the head and lectured to “do it for the party so you don’t cost us the seat.”

To be sure, I don’t think either would go on a kamikaze mission. But Titus, who has been in politics for a quarter-century, is furious Team Reid chose Rosen, who has been in politics for about a quarter of an hour. And Giunchigliani, who is a heroine on the left, is not exactly friendly with Sisolak, who is viewed with some skepticism among progressives.

So what’s likely to occur? (Warning: It is July 2017, about 250 days before filing closes for the November 2018 general election. Please apply many grains of salt, and also know that the Pundit’s Prerogative to Pivot on Predictions always applies.)

Let’s look at the Senate race first.

I won’t belabor this point: Heller, while he has never lost, is very vulnerable. Most polls show his disapproval rating crushes his approval rating, and he has been whipsawed on health care.

Rosen, who was elected to her first office only last year, was a superb first-time candidate. She is poised and tough. But she still only defeated perennial GOP contender Tarkanian by 1 percentage point in that district.

From his perch in the Bellagio, Prince Harry, still ruling in exile, never even considered Titus. He and his team eventually tabbed Rosen over ex-Treasurer Kate Marshall and Rep. Ruben Kihuen because she is so fresh, so bereft of a long record to attack. A puppet of Reid and Nancy Pelosi? So far, that’s about all the GOP has. (More will come.)

The acid relationship between Reid and Titus goes way back. She erroneously blamed Reid the Elder for Reid the Younger’s 2002 run for a County Commission seat she coveted – Harry told Rory not to run. Reid also quietly supported Jim Gibson, the newly minted commissioner, for governor in 2006 (Titus crushed him in the primary, then lost to scandal-tainted Jim Gibbons in the general). And Reid, in the throes of his “Hispanics can win any office in Nevada now” phase, pushed Rep. Ruben Kihuen for Congress in the seat Titus wanted in 2012. (When Kihuen didn’t perform, Reid yanked him from the primary and Titus now holds the seat.)

Titus surely feels like Rodney Dangerfield when it comes to Team Reid, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee didn’t even include her in the initial polling. (Reid still has the ear of the DSCC and of his successor as Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer.)

It is true that Titus lost the seat Rosen now occupies in 2010, when The Reid Machine revved up the base to save their man. She did lose to Gibbons in 2006 even though he sustained three (you read that right) scandalous stories in the final three weeks. And with the DSCC, EMILY’s List and Team Reid behind Rosen, Titus may have trouble raising money.

But Titus is not acting impulsively even if she is angry at being snubbed. She took a poll. The former political science professor knows the downside. And she has a safe House seat and is building seniority.

If she runs, the race will be ugly. Reid & Co. will go all out to destroy her. I see flashbacks to her infamous statement: “Washoe County has been a sponge, just soaking up the income that's been earned by the blood and sweat of the remainder of the state. They don't want growth; they want handouts."

Team Reid will scorch the Earth. But if anyone would take a honey badger approach, it’s Titus. She might decide this is her last political challenge, especially in a year during which Trump may make Heller even weaker than he already is. I think it’s unlikely, but as a sometimes sadistic political observer, I feel something happening in my salivary glands.

As for the governor’s race, I doubt Team Reid is thrilled with Sisolak for the same reason dad didn’t want the son to run for the local government body a decade and a half ago: County commissioners have inherent baggage from voting for developers and against residents. There is built-in grassroots opposition, not to mention readymade pay-to-play campaign ads.

But Sisolak is a deft pol, has a tremendous work ethic and has always been ambitious. He may have rubbed some people the wrong way and may not be as liberal as some Democrats would like. But he has $4 million and is close to Reid crony Jay Brown, which is enough for Prince Harry to get on board.

Giunchigliani is unquestionably to the left of Sisolak and is as fearless as Titus. She has paid her dues in Carson City and Clark County and surely thinks she is just as entitled to be governor as Sisolak – and maybe more so because of her legislative experience.

She is as fearless as Titus, and won’t back down from threats of her money being cut off. So long as she is a commissioner, she will be able to raise enough funds to be competitive.

Giunchigliani has played this as organically grown from a social media campaign, that she wasn’t originally interested. But she is now, and seems to be leaning toward the race. (Calendar caveat invoked again.)

She also surely knows that Sisolak is vulnerable in Northern Nevada because of his Raider Stadium advocacy. The project is immensely unpopular, with its $750 million of public money, outside Clark County.

I think Giunchigliani is more likely to run than Titus. And she could easily defeat Sisolak in a low-turnout (almost always under 50 percent) June primary.

What should worry Democrats is that these are two seasoned pols in their 60s, having accomplished much and perhaps ready for an up or out move, with really nothing much to lose. Maybe it won’t happen, maybe the GOP will have the primary problem. But if Titus and Giunchigliani run, it’s going to be a long and painful year for the Democrats.