The Official Trump 1.0 Approval Ratings Thread

[Mr. Morden]

The -8% in the Midwest is probably the worst number for Trump and Republicans.

Subsample error and all, but yeah. If he's bleeding support in the Midwest, he's putting a fair number of GOP house members in danger.

I'm not sure if he's really bleeding support.  Or rather, while whatever post-election "bounce" he might have gotten has faded, I'm not sure if he's doing any worse now than he was on election day.  The Ohio exit poll, for example had his favorability #s in the state at:

favorable 41%
unfavorable 57%

Yet he won the state convincingly.  He was underwater on favorability almost everywhere, but still won.  Will the same hold on job approval though?  I'm not sure.

[Mr. Morden]

The -8% in the Midwest is probably the worst number for Trump and Republicans.

Subsample error and all, but yeah. If he's bleeding support in the Midwest, he's putting a fair number of GOP house members in danger.

I'm not sure if he's really bleeding support.  Or rather, while whatever post-election "bounce" he might have gotten has faded, I'm not sure if he's doing any worse now than he was on election day.  The Ohio exit poll, for example had his favorability #s in the state at:

favorable 41%
unfavorable 57%

Yet he won the state convincingly.  He was underwater on favorability almost everywhere, but still won.  Will the same hold on job approval though?  I'm not sure.

I'd like to know the source of this favorability rating. I would love to put it on the map because the state is Ohio, usually a slightly-R swing state. 
   

The source of that favorability rating is the election day exit poll for Ohio:

http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/ohio/president

[Mr. Morden]

The poll was an electoral exit poll.

I'm guessing that Ohioans voted for Donald Trump despite low expectations.

There were many states where Trump was underwater in favorability according to the exit poll, but still defeated Clinton in the voting.  Indiana, Missouri, South Carolina...he won all of them handily, yet the exit poll gave him net negative favorability in each.  Heck, in Utah he was at 34% favorable, 63% unfavorable.

[Mr. Morden]

2/4/2017:
Disapproval 53%
Approval 42%

Gallup.

Fun fact... Ronald Reagan had a 42% approval rating, or worse, between July and October 1982.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1982

Nooo no no, see, Trump is different. Normal rules don't apply, all GOP midterms will be like 2002, etc etc.

Irony may be intended.

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Many Americans still thought Ronald Reagan 'scary' in 1982. In 2018? We have yet to see how Americans will see President Trump... It could get really ugly. If Democrats can get the younger voters out, then even "R+5" Congressional districts can be vulnerable. 

As Virginia pointed out, though, it's not just about getting out younger and minority voters (although it certainly doesn't hurt) but driving up the score among already likely to vote people such as older voters and whites. Something that might be achieved if, say, loads of people suddenly lose their healthcare.

Well, at the moment, I'm not actually convinced that anything substantial will change on health insurance reform.  Some tort reform changes, or tweaks to how the exchanges work, but beyond that it's not clear anything will change.  Several Republicans in Congress (and perhaps even Trump himself) don't want repeal unless replace goes with it, and it's not obvious to me that any version of "replace" will be able to get enough votes to pass.

[Mr. Morden]

I'm not sure it makes sense to look at historical averages covering both parties when trying to predict midterm losses in the House.  At the moment, at least, there's a pretty significant asymmetry between the two parties in terms of how efficiently their voters are distributed geographically, such that the Dems would need a rather substantial margin of victory in the national House popular vote in order to win back the chamber.  Trump might be unpopular, but unless the people who don't like him are geographically distributed in an optimal way, it won't matter.

[Mr. Morden]

Well, one thing I'd note is that the tipping point seat in the House in 2016 was UT-4, Mia Love's district, and she won by a 12.5% margin.  That is, if you had a uniform nationwide swing towards the Dems from the GOP's actual ~1% national victory margin, it would need to be as big as 12.5 points in order to win the House.

Of course, the swing wouldn't be uniform, but the point is, on the surface that makes it look like a rather large structural advantage for the GOP.  Is that different from what the Dems faced in the last decade?  I don't know.  I suppose I could look up the tipping point seat in 2004, to see if it looked just as daunting for the Dems to take the House in 2006, but I'm too lazy to do so. 

Would also note, of course, that Trump was already unpopular in November 2016, at the time that the voters were reelecting a Republican Congress.  Does that matter?  If the incoming president is unpopular to begin with, and simply remains unpopular two years in, does that impact the opposition's ability to pick up seats in the House?  I don't know.

[Mr. Morden]

Quinnipiac:

Approve 42%
Disapprove 51%

Source

Gender gap remains huge:

men: 50% approve, 43% disapprove
women: 35% approve, 58% disapprove

fav/unfav %:
Pence 43/39% for +4%
Trump 43/52% for -9%
Bannon 14/41% for -27%

On the executive order…

“Do you support or oppose suspending immigration from "terror prone" regions, even if it means turning away refugees from those regions?”
support 44%
oppose 50%

“Do you support or oppose suspending all travel by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen to the U.S. for 90 days?”
support 46%
oppose 51%

“Do you support or oppose suspending the immigration of all refugees to the U.S., regardless of where they are coming from, for 120 days?”
support 37%
oppose 60%

“Do you support or oppose suspending all immigration of Syrian refugees to the U.S. indefinitely?”
support 26%
oppose 70%

“Do you think President Trump's executive order on immigration makes the nation more safe, less safe, or doesn't it affect the safety of the nation?”
more safe 38%
less safe 39%

“Do you think exceptions to President Trump's immigration order should be made for Iraqi citizens that helped the U.S. military, or not?”
yes 76%
no 17%

[Mr. Morden]

I'm not sure it makes sense to look at historical averages covering both parties when trying to predict midterm losses in the House.  At the moment, at least, there's a pretty significant asymmetry between the two parties in terms of how efficiently their voters are distributed geographically, such that the Dems would need a rather substantial margin of victory in the national House popular vote in order to win back the chamber.  Trump might be unpopular, but unless the people who don't like him are geographically distributed in an optimal way, it won't matter.

Whether President Trump will be unpopular in the late summer and early autumn of 2018 is yet to be known. But if he should be unpopular enough, Democrats will have  enough of an edge in the national popular vote for the House that they can swing as many as 42 House seats by winning districts that are up to R+5... enough for an unambiguous majority. That would take about a 55-45 split in the vote.  But if enough people want to constrain him, that is what they will have to do.

2006 Dems won the national popular vote by around 8%, so that's totally doable.

Also... odd finding... the GOP won the House of Reps popular vote in 2016 by a 1% margin... Dems gained 6 seats... so, the Dems are really only facing a national PVI penalty of around 2%. A 6% Dem margin would be enough to win the House if that is applied broadly.

Wait, I'm sorry, you'll have to explain that logic to me.  Why would a 6% Dem. margin be enough to win the House?  I don't follow.

[Mr. Morden]

I'm not sure it makes sense to look at historical averages covering both parties when trying to predict midterm losses in the House.  At the moment, at least, there's a pretty significant asymmetry between the two parties in terms of how efficiently their voters are distributed geographically, such that the Dems would need a rather substantial margin of victory in the national House popular vote in order to win back the chamber.  Trump might be unpopular, but unless the people who don't like him are geographically distributed in an optimal way, it won't matter.

Whether President Trump will be unpopular in the late summer and early autumn of 2018 is yet to be known. But if he should be unpopular enough, Democrats will have  enough of an edge in the national popular vote for the House that they can swing as many as 42 House seats by winning districts that are up to R+5... enough for an unambiguous majority. That would take about a 55-45 split in the vote.  But if enough people want to constrain him, that is what they will have to do.

2006 Dems won the national popular vote by around 8%, so that's totally doable.

Also... odd finding... the GOP won the House of Reps popular vote in 2016 by a 1% margin... Dems gained 6 seats... so, the Dems are really only facing a national PVI penalty of around 2%. A 6% Dem margin would be enough to win the House if that is applied broadly.

Wait, I'm sorry, you'll have to explain that logic to me.  Why would a 6% Dem. margin be enough to win the House?  I don't follow.

I was a bit inarticulate, but you actually prove my point above. You said Mia Love won with a 12.5% margin, when the Dems are down 1% nationally... well, if you increase the Dems by 6%, and the GOP drops by 6%, then that's 12%. I should have said swing, not margin.

Well yeah, if they actually manage to win nationally by ~11 or 12 points, they win the House, sure.  Of course, they haven't actually won by 11+ points since 1982.  It's a heck of a swing.  I think the more interesting question is whether they can win some of those seats they lost this time by 12, 13, 14 points even if the national margin only shifts by ~7 or 8 points.  Is that likely?  Or has their structural disadvantage really grown so much now that they need to win the popular vote by more than they've managed to do so since 1982 in order to get a majority of seats?

[Mr. Morden]

Morning Consult national poll on Trump job approval, conducted Feb. 2-4:

http://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015a-1b58-d712-adda-bf78cc9d0001
http://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015a-1b5a-d7b6-a15e-5b5fe03e0001

approve 47%
disapprove 46%

Trump job approval margin by region:
Midwest: +7
Northeast: -8
South: +6
West: -2

Trump job approval margin by race:
whites: +12
blacks: -53
Hispanics: -13

Trump job approval margin by income:
under $50k: 0
$50-100k: +5
over $100k: -1

[Mr. Morden]

Still amazing to me that we have a Republican president who is doing as bad or worse among those making over $100,000 as he is with those making under $50,000.  It's not just this one poll, as we've seen it in quite a few polls recently.  I mean, I understand why it's happening, but imagine showing those numbers to a political observer from 30 years ago.

[Mr. Morden]

SurveyUSA did a national favorable rating poll among 1.207 RV, Monday and Tuesday:

46-50 Donald Trump
47-44 Mike Pence
25-42 Steve Bannon
33-42 Kellyanne Conway
27-34 Jared Kushner

53-34 New York Times
52-34 Washington Post
54-38 CNN
54-42 FOX News
49-38 MSNBC
22-32 Matt Drudge
18-39 Breitbart
56-36 SNL

57-40 Barack Obama
43-52 Hillary Clinton

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=baeb0e3c-2056-4057-b9ee-8f02adb98bfd

Trump favorability margin by region…
Midwest: -7
Northeast: -10
South: +4
West: -9

[Mr. Morden]

Why are we still using RV's right now?

Isn't that how it always goes? LV screens need to be used before an election, which isn't for a long time, so the best way to go right now is registered voters. Or, I'd think anyway.

Usually it's adults, at least this far out and on something as trivial as approval

I thought only head to head races got polled in RV this far out.

Different pollsters do different things.  Morning Consult, PPP, and Quinnipiac all do RVs, for example.  Some others, like Gallup and YouGov, do adults.

[Mr. Morden]

Ipsos/Reuters on Trump’s job approval, conducted Feb. 3-7:

http://www.ipsos-na.com/download/pr.aspx?id=16399

approve 48%
disapprove 47%

[Mr. Morden]

I think that Iowa poll will show something like -7 for Trump. A lot of voters there didn't really like Trump, but rather just hated Clinton.

Isn't that how it was almost everywhere?  Trump's fav/unfav in the national exit poll was 38%/60%.  He was underwater on favorability in places like IN, MO, and SC, yet still won those states handily.

That's why I don't get why people are acting as if Trump's popularity is now "crashing".  He was already unpopular on election day.

[Mr. Morden]

SurveyMonkey national poll, conducted Feb. 6-12:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BztOs71zt1WpVE9uajdzMDRfckk/view

Trump job approval:
approve 46%
disapprove 53%
(Those numbers are the same for both adults and RVs.)

approval margin among…
men: +10
women: -22
white: +10
black: -55
Hispanic: -39
white / no college: +24
white / college degree: -16

[Mr. Morden]

Okay. I thought the implication was that the thread would max out on replies and that there would be another one out of necessity.

Yeah, at the rate this thread is going, it'll probably get long enough to merit a "2.0" thread by the end of this year.  Presumably Trump will still be in office at the end of 2017.

[Mr. Morden]

Ftr, even though I posted the OP in this thread, I didn't name it.  Ernest did.  I was just posting about a Gallup poll on Trump's favorability back in November, and Ernest merged it with another thread to make a Trump job approval megathread.

[Mr. Morden]

Fox Poll: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2017/02/14/fox-news-poll-february-14-2017/

Trump Approval Rating:

Approve: 49 48%
Disapprove: 48 47%

Crosstabs:

men: +15
women: -12
non-white: -42
white college degree: -4
white no college degree: +37
under age 45: -16
over age 45: +12
under $50k: -5
over $50k: +1

7% of Clinton voters approve of Trump’s job performance.  2% of Trump voters disapprove of his job performance.

Also from that poll:

“Do you approve or disapprove of Donald Trump’s executive order on how the United States government will handle immigration, which includes temporarily banning all refugees as well as banning citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States?”

approve 46%
disapporve 52%

On the individual parts of the executive order, a narrow majority oppose the 120 ban on all refugees and the indefinite ban on refugees from Syria.  However, people were more receptive to this part:

“For 90 days, banning people from countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States.”

goes to far 48%
about right 38%
doesn’t go far enough 12%
don’t know 2%

[Mr. Morden]

Morning Consult/Politico
Trump Approval Rating: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/poll-trump-democrats-elizabeth-warren-235026

Approve: 45%
Disapprove: 45%

Looks like it's actually 49% approve, 45% disapprove:

https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/170202_topline_Politico_v2_AG.pdf

[Mr. Morden]

Economist/YouGov national poll, conducted Feb. 12-14:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/5amsxmrtih/econToplines.pdf
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/12jnhk8sf5/econTabReport.pdf

Trump job approval among adults:
approve 43%
disapprove 47%

Trump job approval among RVs:
approve 46%
disapprove 49%

Trump still doing worst among the rich:

income under $50k: -2
income between $50k and $100k: -2
income over $100k: -19

5% of Clinton voters approve of Trump’s job performance.  5% of Trump voters disapprove of his job performance.

[Mr. Morden]

Ipsos/Reuters national poll, conducted Feb. 10-14:

http://www.ipsos-na.com/download/pr.aspx?id=16426

approve 46%
disapprove 50%

[Mr. Morden]

The education gap in that Virginia poll is unreal…

non-whites: -56%
white / college degree: -27%
white / no college degree: +23%

It’s not quite that big for any other questions asked.  For the Kaine vs. Fiorina matchup, for example, the white education gap is 33 points, not 50 points.

[Mr. Morden]

https://mobile.twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/833060939578617857

This is heavily skewed by Rasmussen at 55, which is at least 8 points higher than the next best one for him.

HuffPo's trendline if you take out Rasmussen is:

approve 42%
disapprove 52%

link

Including Rasmussen brings it all the way up to 45%.

[Mr. Morden]

Also Democrats supported Obama through pretty much his entire presidency (Did his approval among D's ever drop below 85%?) and that didn't cause them to vote.

Obama was just below 80% among Democrats during much of 2013-2015:

link

Here's the corresponding graph for Trump among Republicans:

link