Can we get a map showing the approval ratings of Trump in every state?

[Fuzzybigfoot]

I was thinking we could collectively look for and compile polls to see if we could use that data to see how they relate to his national approvals.  Polls for 2018 statewide elections might be the best place to look, as they often come with presidential ratings.  Anyone willing to help?

[PragmaticPopulist]

I could. I've actually made a map of Trump's net approval rating from that Gallup 50-state poll over 6 months.

I'll look for more recent polls and see what comes up.

[pbrower2a]

A thread exists with that purpose, and much of the material is polling (national tacking and state approval-disapproval polls). I made a pair of maps. For about 30 states I use the Gallup composite of polling data (which averages about April) and subsequent polling data from credible sources.

I do not use 'favorability' polls. Neither do I use 'excellent-good-fair-poor' because 'fair' is ambiguous. A seven-year-old child who gets a 'fair' result from playing a violin might be praiseworthy, but some adult who gets such a result had better stick to his paying job. 

One pair shows disapproval ratings, which I consider particularly relevant to this President.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=264554.msg5794489#msg5794489

Blue, positive and 40-43%  20% saturation
............................ 44-47%  40%
............................ 48-50%  50%
............................ 51-55%  70%
............................ 56%+     90%

Red, negative and  48-50%  20% (raw approval)
..........................  44-47%  30%
..........................  40-43%  50%
..........................  35-39%  70%
.......................under  35%  90%

White - tie.


Now for the theme of disapproval as shown in the Gallup data and subsequent polls:

navy under 40
blue 40-43
light blue 44-47
white 48 or 49
pink 50-54
red 55-59
maroon 60-69
reddish-black 70+

[Keep cool-idge]

Is there any reason for me to believe the polls when they showed him losing Michigan Wisconsin Pennsylvania and doing worse in Minnesota Ohio Maine North Carolina Virginia Colorado Iowa ?

[mileslunn]

Is there any reason for me to believe the polls when they showed him losing Michigan Wisconsin Pennsylvania and doing worse in Minnesota Ohio Maine North Carolina Virginia Colorado Iowa ?

Absolutely.  Trump was never well liked to begin with, he won largely because Hillary Clinton had low approval ratings too.  In fact Trump and Clinton had the two worst approval ratings of any candidate since polling has began.  Low approval rating doesn't mean he will automatically lose those states.  It means people would vote differently if there is a better alternative, but once the Democrats choose their leader, then it will become amongst those dissatisfied Trump voters who do they dislike less.  While the majority of Trump and Clinton voters were satisfied with their candidate, there was a sizeable minority, I believe as much as 25%, who disliked both candidates and voted for whomever they disliked less.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Is there any reason for me to believe the polls when they showed him losing Michigan Wisconsin Pennsylvania and doing worse in Minnesota Ohio Maine North Carolina Virginia Colorado Iowa ?

Absolutely.  Trump was never well liked to begin with, he won largely because Hillary Clinton had low approval ratings too.  In fact Trump and Clinton had the two worst approval ratings of any candidate since polling has began.  Low approval rating doesn't mean he will automatically lose those states.  It means people would vote differently if there is a better alternative, but once the Democrats choose their leader, then it will become amongst those dissatisfied Trump voters who do they dislike less.  While the majority of Trump and Clinton voters were satisfied with their candidate, there was a sizeable minority, I believe as much as 25%, who disliked both candidates and voted for whomever they disliked less.

If the Democrats nominate someone like Biden, Harris, or Sanders, someone with net favorability, those approval ratings will turn into election results.

[pbrower2a]

Is there any reason for me to believe the polls when they showed him losing Michigan Wisconsin Pennsylvania and doing worse in Minnesota Ohio Maine North Carolina Virginia Colorado Iowa ?

Absolutely. The polls that showed Republicans winning big in 2010 and 2014 looked like outliers, but  they showed things breaking rapidly for Republicans. They also showed what looked like a great prospect for Democratic gains evaporating rapidly in 2016 -- and for all his faults, Donald Trump becoming our dictator in for all practical purposes a political order in which one part of the political spectrum is completely irrelevant. On the other side, Republicans got saddled with the perception that they were cruel, corrupt, and incompetent in 2006 and 2008 and thus much more vulnerable than many thought.

Polls are like still frames of a movie; they show a moment. For most of a great crime movie, let us say Double Indemnity or Rear Window, perpetrators may seem to be getting away with the crime. Only near the end do we see otherwise.

It is easy to see a poll in which  a state that looked to have a 50 D - 47 R in a Senate race edge suddenly going 52 R - 45 D and think that that can't be right because nothing has really  happened. After all, the Republican is an undistinguished  empty-suit. But that empty suit has aligned lots of corporate money behind him because the corporate lobbyists love him. The money is flowing  in  for the corporate stooge. So if you see the incumbent Senator from Texas going from 52 R-45 D to 50 D-47 R and think "that can't be right"... seeming outliers can be right.

[PragmaticPopulist]

Here's the most recent polls of statewide approval ratings I could find, and I made sure they are credible pollsters. Blue for net approval, red for net disapprove.

[Xing]

Is there any reason for me to believe the polls when they showed him losing Michigan Wisconsin Pennsylvania and doing worse in Minnesota Ohio Maine North Carolina Virginia Colorado Iowa ?

Pollsters regularly change their methodology, and polling biases change from cycle to cycle. While some states like Nevada and Michigan have notoriously bad polling, there isn't much reason to believe that polls will necessarily be biased against Trump in the future. I'd say it's just as likely that 2020 polls end up having a slight pro-Trump bias as it is that they underestimate Trump again.

[mileslunn]

Is there any reason for me to believe the polls when they showed him losing Michigan Wisconsin Pennsylvania and doing worse in Minnesota Ohio Maine North Carolina Virginia Colorado Iowa ?

Pollsters regularly change their methodology, and polling biases change from cycle to cycle. While some states like Nevada and Michigan have notoriously bad polling, there isn't much reason to believe that polls will necessarily be biased against Trump in the future. I'd say it's just as likely that 2020 polls end up having a slight pro-Trump bias as it is that they underestimate Trump again.

Very true as polls often overreact and tend to adjust for their mistakes the last time forgetting the electorate each time changes.  In 2012 most polls underestimated the Democrats and overestimated the GOP.  Across the pond you saw the same thing, the polls adjusted their methodology after missing 2015 badly whereas had they kept the same methodology they would have gotten 2017 right but by adjusting they missed it again.  I think the real thing is determining who will show up.  Will Trump's unpopularity motivate much of the Obama coalition to show up again like in 2008 and 2012 or will they stay home like in 2016.

[Adam Griffin]

Is there any reason for me to believe the polls when they showed him losing Michigan Wisconsin

He barely won those states...? Polls have margins of error: in many cases, +/- 3 percentage points. That means a poll that shows a tie could mean the result is anywhere from one candidate being up by 3 to that same candidate being down by 3; the margin could be off by as much as 6 points.

State	Poll Avg	Result	Diff
IA	-2.9	-9.4	6.5
OH	-1.9	-8.1	6.2
WI	+5.3	-0.8	6.1
WI	+5.3	+0.8	6.1
ME	+7.5	+3.0	4.5
MI	+4.2	-0.2	4.4
NC	+0.7	-3.7	4.4
PA	+3.7	-0.7	4.4
MN	+5.8	+1.5	4.3
VA	+5.5	+5.3	0.2
CO	+4.1	+4.9	0.8

As you can see, every state according to the 538 model was either right on the line of that 6-point variance or well within it. So the notion that polling was a "flop" in 2016 really is exaggerated: basically, the polls were off by as much as their disclaimers always say they can be.

You're not going to have a situation where the polls are showing Trump's approval underwater by 20 points when it is really A-OK in reality. There's room for variance, but it could just as easily tilt in the direction you don't want it to tilt as it could in the other direction.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Look at Arkansas and Mississippi.

[Beet]

Is there any reason for me to believe the polls when they showed him losing Michigan Wisconsin

He barely won those states...? Polls have margins of error: in many cases, +/- 3 percentage points. That means a poll that shows a tie could mean the result is anywhere from one candidate being up by 3 to that same candidate being down by 3; the margin could be off by as much as 6 points.

State	Poll Avg	Result	Diff
IA	-2.9	-9.4	6.5
OH	-1.9	-8.1	6.2
WI	+5.3	-0.8	6.1
WI	+5.3	+0.8	6.1
ME	+7.5	+3.0	4.5
MI	+4.2	-0.2	4.4
NC	+0.7	-3.7	4.4
PA	+3.7	-0.7	4.4
MN	+5.8	+1.5	4.3
VA	+5.5	+5.3	0.2
CO	+4.1	+4.9	0.8

As you can see, every state according to the 538 model was either right on the line of that 6-point variance or well within it. So the notion that polling was a "flop" in 2016 really is exaggerated: basically, the polls were off by as much as their disclaimers always say they can be.

You're not going to have a situation where the polls are showing Trump's approval underwater by 20 points when it is really A-OK in reality. There's room for variance, but it could just as easily tilt in the direction you don't want it to tilt as it could in the other direction.

Looking at that chart had the opposite effect than your argument goes. When the polling error isn't random but systemic or correlated with other factors, that's a polling error. The polls were off in the same direction in 9 out of 10 cases. Even worse, these are polling averages, and the whole point of aggregating polls like 538 does is to reduce random error. Clearly, the polling was off in crucial Midwestern swing states with lots of working class whites. Pollsters tend to overpoll middle class respondents. That's also why they slightly underestimated Obama in 2012.

[Mr. Morden]

Looking at that chart had the opposite effect than your argument goes. When the polling error isn't random but systemic or correlated with other factors, that's a polling error. The polls were off in the same direction in 9 out of 10 cases. Even worse, these are polling averages, and the whole point of aggregating polls like 538 does is to reduce random error. Clearly, the polling was off in crucial Midwestern swing states with lots of working class whites. Pollsters tend to overpoll middle class respondents. That's also why they slightly underestimated Obama in 2012.

According to the AAPOR report that I posted about here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=263658.0

the pollsters who looked into the 2016 polling failure concluded that a big part of the state polling problem is that many/most state pollsters weren't weighting by education level at all.  This wasn't such a big deal in 2012, because Obama and Romney did about the same among college graduates and non-college graduates, so the errors washed out.  But it created a massive problem in the Rust Belt in 2016, because there was such a big education gap between the candidates this time.

So going forward, I'd say we should pay attention to which pollsters are weighting by education level, and how they're doing it.

[Beet]

Looking at that chart had the opposite effect than your argument goes. When the polling error isn't random but systemic or correlated with other factors, that's a polling error. The polls were off in the same direction in 9 out of 10 cases. Even worse, these are polling averages, and the whole point of aggregating polls like 538 does is to reduce random error. Clearly, the polling was off in crucial Midwestern swing states with lots of working class whites. Pollsters tend to overpoll middle class respondents. That's also why they slightly underestimated Obama in 2012.

According to the AAPOR report that I posted about here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=263658.0

the pollsters who looked into the 2016 polling failure concluded that a big part of the state polling problem is that many/most state pollsters weren't weighting by education level at all.  This wasn't such a big deal in 2012, because Obama and Romney did about the same among college graduates and non-college graduates, so the errors washed out.  But it created a massive problem in the Rust Belt in 2016, because there was such a big education gap between the candidates this time.

So going forward, I'd say we should pay attention to which pollsters are weighting by education level, and how they're doing it.

That is in line with my thinking as well. It seems like a way to test this, would be to see if state polls which weighed by education in 2016 were any more accurate than those that didn't.

[MT Treasurer]

Trump's approval rating in MT isn't higher than in NE or ID, lol. That Gallup 50-state poll seems like junk to me, honestly.

[Beet]

Trump's approval rating in MT isn't higher than in NE or ID, lol. That Gallup 50-state poll seems like junk to me, honestly.

MT literally elected a guy who tackled and started pounding someone for no reason, Trump being popular is less surprising than that.

[Inmate Trump]

Is there any reason for me to believe the polls when they showed him losing Michigan Wisconsin Pennsylvania and doing worse in Minnesota Ohio Maine North Carolina Virginia Colorado Iowa ?

We know Russia targeted key states with false information to sway the minds of voters.

We also know Russia attempted to hack into actual voting machines (but were apparently unsuccessful).

We also have information and intelligence indicating possible collusion between Trump's campaign and a Russia.

Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Maine are hardly swing states but are rather traditionally heavily Democratic areas during presidential elections. And with polls being consistently close to the final result in recent elections prior to 2016, there is reason to wonder why they were so far off in 2016. Misleading polls occur, sure.  But when every major pollster is wrong? When every political analyst is wrong?  When historians and experts on presidential elections are wrong?  That means something unusual happened.

[Mr. Morden]

Looking at that chart had the opposite effect than your argument goes. When the polling error isn't random but systemic or correlated with other factors, that's a polling error. The polls were off in the same direction in 9 out of 10 cases. Even worse, these are polling averages, and the whole point of aggregating polls like 538 does is to reduce random error. Clearly, the polling was off in crucial Midwestern swing states with lots of working class whites. Pollsters tend to overpoll middle class respondents. That's also why they slightly underestimated Obama in 2012.

According to the AAPOR report that I posted about here:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=263658.0

the pollsters who looked into the 2016 polling failure concluded that a big part of the state polling problem is that many/most state pollsters weren't weighting by education level at all.  This wasn't such a big deal in 2012, because Obama and Romney did about the same among college graduates and non-college graduates, so the errors washed out.  But it created a massive problem in the Rust Belt in 2016, because there was such a big education gap between the candidates this time.

So going forward, I'd say we should pay attention to which pollsters are weighting by education level, and how they're doing it.

That is in line with my thinking as well. It seems like a way to test this, would be to see if state polls which weighed by education in 2016 were any more accurate than those that didn't.

I've only read the media summary of the AAPOR report rather than the report myself, but my understanding is that they performed exactly the comparison that you suggest, which is how they concluded that the biggest problem was the lack of weighting by education levels.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

It looks like Trump made serious inroads in Utah, interesting given how unpopular he was there during the general.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

My friend says all national approval rating polls are useless unless they have a sample size that is at least 1% of the american population.

[TheLeftwardTide]

My friend says all national approval rating polls are useless unless they have a sample size that is at least 1% of the american population.

We all have that one idiot friend. In my case, I have several.

Anyway, it's interesting to see how well Trump's doing in WV relative to the rest of the nation. It still amazes me that a state that went for Dukakis over Bush by 4 points in 1988 can swing so hard to such a fiscally conservative president. I want to see if this holds up until 2019/2020.

[Rjjr77]

My friend says all national approval rating polls are useless unless they have a sample size that is at least 1% of the american population.

hes right that they are useless, wrong about the sample size.

[Webnicz]

It looks like Trump made serious inroads in Utah, interesting given how unpopular he was there during the general.

I am actually shocked more conservatives haven't jumped on board. His disapproval is still at 50%. Shocking coming  from the most republican state in 2012.