Trump’s Approval Rating Stands Around 35 Percent in Three Key Midwest States

[Kamala]

It should be noted that NBC News/Marist had Hillary winning PA by 12 points in mid-October.

As we know, Trump won by almost a point.

NBC didn't poll MI and WI in 2016.

Hillary was probably ahead by a decent amount in PA around mid-October. If your trying to tell us that Marist is inaccurate because of 2016, well then we wouldn't be able to trust most pollsters going forward, would we?

I'm not trying to say that Marist is necessarily inaccurate (they also had some good results, such as in AZ).

On the other hand, they also flopped badly in NC (predicting a 6-point Hillary win there), in a poll just a few days before election day (she lost by 3 or 4).

So it's possible that Trump's approval is actually at 40-42% in these 3 states right now ... who knows ?

I see no reason to believe any pollster is underestimating Trump's support, especially now since they are hyper aware of the polling failure that was 2016.

Yeah - pollsters rely on being accurate to bring in clients. They've probably changed their methodology compared to pre-2016 election.

[Kamala]

In my opinion, Trump has all the signs of having an 2012 Obama-like effect - as in, his 2nd run will be much weaker than his first due to sagging popularity. If that is the case, he will have a pretty big losing margin if the Democrat picks up not only most of the 3rd party votes, but some former Trump supporters who feel disillusioned (or simply stay home).

I have a feeling that this is a new normal - that presidents perform worse in their reelection bid than their initial attempt.