Trump approval ratings thread, 1.4

[GeorgiaModerate]

Quinnipiac, Jan. 25-28, 1004 RV (2-week change)

Approve 38 (-3)
Disapprove 57 (+2)

Strongly approve 29 (-4)
Strongly disapprove 50 (nc)

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1090242685129183235

Generic Not-Trump numbers =/= actual Dem challenger numbers. C'mon, let's not be dense here.

Will 57% of the American electorate vote for the Democratic challenger to Donald Trump?  After ruling out the idea that anyone who will not vote for Trump isn't really an American (in view of the personality cult around this President), it is hard to see how anyone decidedly liberal could get 57% of the popular vote. The popular vote splits about 45-10-45 left-center-right.

The most incompetent liberal Democrat that you can imagine gets about 45% of the popular vote if there is no significant split of the left-leaning sector of the political spectrum. Trump is doing an excellent job of promoting partisan unity -- among Democrats. Yes, there is a quarterback controversy so far, but that will likely come to a resolute end.

On the other side, Trump will fail to get any more than 43% of the popular vote. He could do worse, but his best projects to 43%. A 45-14-43 split of the popular vote is enough for Democrats winning the states which Trump most barely won (Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan), and that is barely enough for a Democratic win of the Presidency.

I try to be cautious in setting up my models of Democratic wins against Trump. I want him to scare us witless. What I see is a bunch of conservatives disappointed with Trump voting to show him that moral turpitude is unacceptable in high leadership. If that puts a politically-inept liberal in the White House, then at least that might save some otherwise-shaky Senate seats (maybe in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) in 2022 and facilitate the return of some pro-business Republican as President in the 2024 election. Should America elect another Obama-like President in 2020, which is unlikely, then at least the system works.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1090242685129183235

Generic Not-Trump numbers =/= actual Dem challenger numbers. C'mon, let's not be dense here.

That's true.  But this is an important point:

https://twitter.com/nickgourevitch/status/1090246308500307969

Let's not forget that Trump essentially drew an inside straight to eke out a win in 2016.  If he loses ground anywhere, he's toast.

That's assuming this lasts and that his Democratic opponent's favorable ratings don't get dragged down to his level again. For now though, he is definitely in a worse position for re-election than Bush or Obama ever were.

[pbrower2a]

Glengarriff poll, Michigan, and this is usually a pollster sympathetic to Republicans:

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Telling as a forecast of 2020 turnout:

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https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/29/poll-trump-shutdown-border-wall/2699791002/

In short, Trump can expect to get the sort of support that the Tea Party  got in 2010 and 2014 -- but that will be it.  The electorate will be expanded, and the expansion is hostile to Trump. Trump is not going to win Michigan in 2020.

Restoring a data-loss:

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Trump approval:

With cumulative electoral vote totals in each category.

55% and higher
50-54%
49% or less and positive
tie (white)
44-49% and negative 102
40-43% 13
under 40%  47

An asterisk will be applied to any state in which the President's approval rating is above 43% for which the disapproval rating is 50% or higher.

No segregation of districts in Maine and Nebraska -- yet.

36 more states, and 375 electoral votes to go!

Just think of it: if Trump wins everything in gray, he wins a landslide re-election in league with Bill Clinton in the 1990s or Obama in 2008!

[GeorgiaModerate]

The Economist/YouGov weekly tracker, Jan. 27-29, 1500 adults including 1313 RV

Adults:

Approve 37 (-3)
Disapprove 53 (+1)

Strongly approve 23 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 44 (nc)

Should Trump run for reelection?  Yes 35 (nc), No 53 (+1)

RV:

Approve 43 (+1)
Disapprove 54 (-1)

Strongly approve 28 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 47 (-1)

Should Trump run for reelection?  Yes 40 (nc), No 53 (nc)

[BlueSwan]

The Economist/YouGov weekly tracker, Jan. 27-29, 1500 adults including 1313 RV

Adults:

Approve 37 (-3)
Disapprove 53 (+1)

Strongly approve 23 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 44 (nc)

Should Trump run for reelection?  Yes 35 (nc), No 53 (+1)

RV:

Approve 43 (+1)
Disapprove 54 (-1)

Strongly approve 28 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 47 (-1)

Should Trump run for reelection?  Yes 40 (nc), No 53 (nc)

Lots of somewhat interesting stuff in that poll for poll junkies. Thanks for the link and I'd advice others to at least skim through it as well.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1090242685129183235

Generic Not-Trump numbers =/= actual Dem challenger numbers. C'mon, let's not be dense here.

That's true.  But this is an important point:

https://twitter.com/nickgourevitch/status/1090246308500307969

Let's not forget that Trump essentially drew an inside straight to eke out a win in 2016.  If he loses ground anywhere, he's toast.

That's assuming this lasts and that his Democratic opponent's favorable ratings don't get dragged down to his level again. For now though, he is definitely in a worse position for re-election than Bush or Obama ever were.

Very true. However, I fully expect that after 6 to 12 months of nonstop savaging whomever the Democratic nominee is as a Godless socialist promoting mandatory abortions after they take all your guns, running 24/7 throughout Fox News and other right-wing media plus the entire angry white middle-aged social media demographic, that a substantial share of that 14% of Republicans, plus a non insignificant share of conservative independents, whom now say they'll never vote for Trump will eventually hold their nose and come home.

It's still won't be nearly enough to save him if the rest of these numbers are even close to what happens on Election Day, though.

[Beet]

Don't forget Trump's favorables were only ~35% when he won 46% of the vote. He's never fallen below that since Election Day. About 2% who didn't go for him in 2016 will vote for him if the world hasn't blown up and the economy is growing, because we were told the opposite in 2016. Also, his current poll numbers are a function of the recent government shutdown. If he even starts to move to the center watch his numbers skyrocket.

[pbrower2a]

Don't forget Trump's favorables were only ~35% when he won 46% of the vote. He's never fallen below that since Election Day. About 2% who didn't go for him in 2016 will vote for him if the world hasn't blown up and the economy is growing, because we were told the opposite in 2016. Also, his current poll numbers are a function of the recent government shutdown. If he even starts to move to the center watch his numbers skyrocket.

The shutdown will fade for a while -- but count on the Democratic campaign using it against him. The negative ads practically write themselves with this President.

[DINGO Joe]

Don't forget Trump's favorables were only ~35% when he won 46% of the vote. He's never fallen below that since Election Day. About 2% who didn't go for him in 2016 will vote for him if the world hasn't blown up and the economy is growing, because we were told the opposite in 2016. Also, his current poll numbers are a function of the recent government shutdown. If he even starts to move to the center watch his numbers skyrocket.

He's lost a concept known as the "benefit of the doubt"

[Progressive Pessimist]

Don't forget Trump's favorables were only ~35% when he won 46% of the vote. He's never fallen below that since Election Day. About 2% who didn't go for him in 2016 will vote for him if the world hasn't blown up and the economy is growing, because we were told the opposite in 2016. Also, his current poll numbers are a function of the recent government shutdown. If he even starts to move to the center watch his numbers skyrocket.

While you make a decent point, outsider candidate Trump is in a different position than President Trump. His approvals will probably matter more since he now has the job.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Ipsos/Reuters Core Political Data, Jan. 23-29, 2958 adults (this is not their daily tracker) (change from last month)

Approve 39 (-2)
Disapprove 56 (+2)

Strongly approve 21 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 42 (+2)

[GeorgiaModerate]

Don't forget Trump's favorables were only ~35% when he won 46% of the vote. He's never fallen below that since Election Day. About 2% who didn't go for him in 2016 will vote for him if the world hasn't blown up and the economy is growing, because we were told the opposite in 2016. Also, his current poll numbers are a function of the recent government shutdown. If he even starts to move to the center watch his numbers skyrocket.

He's lost a concept known as the "benefit of the doubt"

Exactly.  Some people voted for him thinking that his business experience would help him be a good  President.  (I've never really understood this argument for any business candidate; government is not a business and doesn't operate like one.)  Those voters thought he might learn quickly and grow into the job, and/or install qualified subordinates with lots of independence to run their departments, or at worst he'd be a figurehead who just enjoyed the attention and let others get on with the business of governing.  Even some voters who didn't vote for him entertained some of these hopes after he won.  But none of those things happened, and Trump has demonstrated time and again that he's unqualified and unfit for the job.  After two years, there's no longer any hope that he'll grow into it and become even a marginally competent President.

[pbrower2a]

Don't forget Trump's favorables were only ~35% when he won 46% of the vote. He's never fallen below that since Election Day. About 2% who didn't go for him in 2016 will vote for him if the world hasn't blown up and the economy is growing, because we were told the opposite in 2016. Also, his current poll numbers are a function of the recent government shutdown. If he even starts to move to the center watch his numbers skyrocket.

He's lost a concept known as the "benefit of the doubt"

Exactly.  Some people voted for him thinking that his business experience would help him be a good  President.  (I've never really understood this argument for any business candidate; government is not a business and doesn't operate like one.)  Those voters thought he might learn quickly and grow into the job, and/or install qualified subordinates with lots of independence to run their departments, or at worst he'd be a figurehead who just enjoyed the attention and let others get on with the business of governing.  Even some voters who didn't vote for him entertained some of these hopes after he won.  But none of those things happened, and Trump has demonstrated time and again that he's unqualified and unfit for the job.  After two years, there's no longer any hope that he'll grow into it and become even a marginally competent President.

Business executives can be brilliant -- but except in a socialist state in which business operations are heavily under state ownership and management, the focus on profit and loss is of little relevance to much of government. Justice, defense, law enforcement, and foreign policy cannot be done on the basis of profit and loss.

A business executive can fire any subordinate even for trivial reasons, including any dissent with company policies. The President of the United States cannot order people into exile. It would be excessive micro-managing for the  President to fire a letter carrier for wearing mismatched shoes. 

The President does not have absolute power over the country in the sense that a tycoon has absolute power over the firm that he owns. Of course if one is fired from PQR corporation there are other places in which one can work. The Founding Fathers did not establish the Presidency as a veiled dictatorship. George Washington established the limits, and any violation of those limits requires a pressing reason such as a war that threatens the survival of the United States.

Even in extreme times, both Lincoln and FDR made sure that their extraordinary powers did not challenge the democratic tradition. There is no crisis, but the current President does not know the limits of Presidential power. The courts have clipped his powers, and now one Branch of Congress does. 

[Badger]

I suspect there will be, eventually, a Resurgence in the whole run government like a business thing using the argument that of course Trump doesn't count because history proved he was a lousy corrupt businessman. Ironically, that argument will be put forth by many of the same people, or at least their ideological heirs, who backed Trump in the first place.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Rasmussen has Trump at 43/57 today, his worst showing in that poll in over a year (Jan. 23, 2018).

[pbrower2a]

I suspect there will be, eventually, a Resurgence in the whole run government like a business thing using the argument that of course Trump doesn't count because history proved he was a lousy corrupt businessman. Ironically, that argument will be put forth by many of the same people, or at least their ideological heirs, who backed Trump in the first place.

Paradoxically, those who want government completely out of economic life -- you know, the people who think that the worst monopolistic gouger is better than the wisest and most benevolent government employee -- ignore the reality that the residual government as an enforcer of the selfish and unlimited greed of the monopolist gouger and protector of the Master Class cannot operate on a profit-and-loss basis. Donald Trump is by all accounts a horrible businessman who has been unable to dedicate himself to building any business that requires the attention that such a business needs.  He is simply lucky to be a landlord exploiting a permanent scarcity of housing in a place (New York City) in which people are able to pay astronomical rents. New York City landlords are simply pricing poor people out into Upstate New York and into Pennsylvania.  One does not live in Greater New York City unless one could do one's economic role nowhere else. Much the same is happening in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Oh, he is a creator of reality TV? It's hard to create worse television than he did. Of course it is directed at the intellectual low end in America. But creating even top-end entertainment that shows a respect for historical reality and the dignity of the common man under the harshest circumstances would be an automatic choice for President. Ken Burns for President, anyone? We know who his models would be -- three of the best (Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and FDR).

I am not certain that a 'better businessman' would be a better administrator. Most entrepreneurs and executives recognize that they do best with a narrow focus at any given time. In the 1990s there was much talk about Lee Iacocca as a possible President. He, a far better executive (he saved Chrysler Corporation from what looked like sure death) downplayed such talk. He had a difficult enough time with finance, marketing, and engineering together. He saw none of that relevant to the government.

Iacocca was a far better executive than Trump. He was obviously smarter and had stronger character. He was no extremist. So far as I know, he never talked about grabbing women by their "kitty-cats".
  

[OneJ]

Telling as a forecast of 2020 turnout:

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That's good news, IMO, to see such high enthusiasm among voters much like last year's midterms so early on. Hopefully, we'll see at least a high, if not record, turnout next year compared to other presidential elections.

[pbrower2a]

As I have suggested I would do, I am looking at a floor for the President: the percentage of people who see themselves likely to vote for him in 2020.

Criteria are any of the following questions:

1. Does the president deserve or not deserve to be re-elected?

2. Do you intend to vote to re-elect the President or vote for someone else?

3. (in binary choices between the President and at least four possible Democratic nominees), what is the best that the President does against a non-joke Democratic nominee?

I may have apples-and-oranges criteria here much like the difference  between approval and favorability or either of 'adults' 'likely voters' or 'registered voters'.


https://twitter.com/DFMresearch/status/1091489797527490561

Nevada: Trump 38%, Schultz 6%, generic Democrat 45%

...He's not going to get close to winning Nevada with these numbers.
More detail on Monday.


Without electoral votes and with no distinction for districts:

Vote for the President:

under 40%
40-44%
45-47%
48 or 49% (white -- he can win a nail-biter!)
50%
51-54%
55% or higher

Basically: the questions about Florida and Wisconsin are practically the same -- question #2.
In North Carolina, Trump cannot get above 46% against anyone. I am not going to give President Trump credit for being better known than the Democrat.

Some matchups in Ohio showed Trump against Democrats. He was behind Biden (Sherrod) Brown, Sanders, and H. Clinton (!) -- but he did reach 49 against Warren, so I go with a '49' in Ohio. That was a favorability poll about the President, and not approval, so I made nothing of it then.

The polls of North Carolina and Ohio were by PPP.  Trump will need more than 46% of the popular vote in North Carolina, but 49% is often enough to win. 50% +1 definitively wins in any state.

A poll in Colorado had Trump down 36 (should he be re-elected?) to 50 (he should not). That seems to have been sponsored by a union, which I would ordinarily reject as a special interest.    

I am not going to make anything of Trump being ahead of someone not well known. He is as well known as anyone will ever get. If he cannot crack 46% in a state against anyone he is not going to get re-elected in that state.

Now here is how I would ask the question for a poll:

In a three -way race between Donald Trump, whoever the Democrats nominate for President, or a conservative alternative to Donald Trump, how will you vote?

A poll in Ohio might have the alternatives:

Donald Trump, who is now President
John Kasich, former Governor of Ohio
practically any Democrat

...................

So far I have only seven states -- but I have a telling  assortment. All but five of the seven states were Trump wins in 2016, and the two that weren't went for Clinton by 5% or less. He is getting crushed in those two states. He is also getting pummeled in a state that he won in 2016. He is going to need more than 46% of the popular vote in 2020 to win either Florida or North Carolina. Ohio is dicey, but a state that he won by 8% should not be dicey if he is to win.


 

[pbrower2a]

Someone must have confused Groundhog Day with April Fool's Day.

This bosh has no undecided and one sum at 101%.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Someone must have confused Groundhog Day with April Fool's Day.

This bosh has no undecided and one sum at 101%.

Trump is at 46/48 approval in this poll.  That seems rather high for Iowa.

[pbrower2a]

Someone must have confused Groundhog Day with April Fool's Day.

This bosh has no undecided and one sum at 101%.

Trump is at 46/48 approval in this poll.  That seems rather high for Iowa.

...and it is released on the day in which the poll ends (which I didn't notice at first)/

I would accept 46-48 for Iowa without those problems. (and there are two 101% sums -- not one!)

[henster]

Someone must have confused Groundhog Day with April Fool's Day.

This bosh has no undecided and one sum at 101%.

Trump is at 46/48 approval in this poll.  That seems rather high for Iowa.

...and it is released on the day in which the poll ends (which I didn't notice at first)/

I would accept 46-48 for Iowa without those problems. (and there are two 101% sums -- not one!)

Emerson only called landlines in '16 and somehow ended up being the more accurate pollsters, along with Gravis they've always astounded me how weird they are but end up producing decent results.

[BlueSwan]

Someone must have confused Groundhog Day with April Fool's Day.

This bosh has no undecided and one sum at 101%.

Well, Trump won Iowa by more than 9 points in 2016 and the state has been trending right and voted for Joni Ernst, so it's not like these results are off the wall. Also, 101 is just due to rounding, nothing unusual there.

[pbrower2a]

Iowa certainly did not trend Right in the 2018 House election. It looks to have gone back to its usual position toward the political middle. Because it has only six electoral votes, it is unlikely to decide the Presidential election.

At this point I see the tipping-point state as Wisconsin, with Iowa slightly more Republican (see the 2018 gubernatorial elections and the 2004 Presidential election), but look at the total House election. Because House races are about national issues, such matters far more in predicting a Presidential election unless one starts discussing the personality of the incumbent President or of non-incumbent challengers. If Wisconsin contains the 269th through 278th electoral votes for the Presidency in 2020, then Iowa contains the 279th to 284th. Arizona contains the 285th through the 295th, and I am leery about going further.

In any event this polling is released early and without the usual analysis including crosstabs.

Trump was successful in exploiting anti-intellectualism, male chauvinism, religious bigotry, and ethnic resentments in 2016. Should he be similarly successful in 2020, then he gets re-elected. Because his achievements are as slight as they are I expect him to returns to the same themes in 2020 as in 2016. He has nothing else.