Trump approval ratings thread, 1.4

[GeorgiaModerate]

Arizona: PPP, Jan. 24-25, 682 RV (2020 ballot test)

Trump 46
Democratic opponent 50

Senate:

McSally 40
Someone new 54

[Dr. Arch]

Arizona: PPP, Jan. 24-25, 682 RV (2020 ballot test)

Trump 46
Democratic opponent 50

Senate:

McSally 40
Someone new 54

Wow on Trump, but yowza on McSally!

[Zaybay]

Not surprising, McSally was unpopular during the first election, and I doubt being appointed after losing has helped her case.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Not surprising, McSally was unpopular during the first election, and I doubt being appointed after losing has helped her case.

Yeah, I could also see her in a tough primary but narrowly pulling it out like Bruce Rauner did. General election wise, she seems DOA.

[Badger]

Arizona: PPP, Jan. 24-25, 682 RV (2020 ballot test)

Trump 46
Democratic opponent 50

Senate:

McSally 40
Someone new 54

Wow on Trump, but yowza on McSally!

Not sure if this is what you meant by wow , but those are actually relatively strong numbers for Trump considering nonspecific candidates like generic Democrat or generic Republican always run better in polling than an actual flesh-and-blood fallible named candidate.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Arizona: PPP, Jan. 24-25, 682 RV (2020 ballot test)

Trump 46
Democratic opponent 50

Senate:

McSally 40
Someone new 54

Wow on Trump, but yowza on McSally!

Not sure if this is what you meant by wow , but those are actually relatively strong numbers for Trump considering nonspecific candidates like generic Democrat or generic Republican always run better in polling than an actual flesh-and-blood fallible named candidate.

Someday a candidate should change their name legally to Generic Republican or Generic Democrat and see what happens.

[pbrower2a]

Arizona: PPP, Jan. 24-25, 682 RV (2020 ballot test)

Trump 46
Democratic opponent 50

Senate:

McSally 40
Someone new 54

Wow on Trump, but yowza on McSally!

Arizona has some of America's highest summer temperatures, but it seems to have gotten icy cold to Trump.  Appointing an electoral loser to a Senate seat is not an effective move.

Who would have thought four years ago that the Republican Party would now be staring at the prospect of a Democrat winning an outright majority of the vote for President and Arizona having two Democratic Senators? The Senate seat held by two Republican nominees for President looks as if its heritage as a reliable Republican seat is over.

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'.



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 as is this one on Arizona.  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 eight states -- but I have a telling  assortment. All but six of the eight 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.


 

[BlueSwan]

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.

Sure there was a big 13-point swing in the house vote in 2018. But still, the GOP retained the governorship and the dems only won by 4 points in the house in a D+8.5 climate, so it's not like it is the dems for the taking in 2020. It probably requires a bit of a semilandslide to win Iowa for the dems in 2020.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Edited to add RV data and adjust prior poll date.

CNN/SSRS, Jan. 30-Feb. 2, 1011 adults including 933 RV (prior poll Dec. 6-9)

Adults:

Approve 40 (+1)
Disapprove 55 (+3)

Strongly approve 29 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 47 (+3)

RV:

Approve 42 (+2)
Disapprove 54 (+1)

Strongly approve 32 (+1)
Strongly disapprove 46 (nc)

[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.

Sure there was a big 13-point swing in the house vote in 2018. But still, the GOP retained the governorship and the dems only won by 4 points in the house in a D+8.5 climate, so it's not like it is the dems for the taking in 2020. It probably requires a bit of a semilandslide to win Iowa for the dems in 2020.

Republican Governors can win in states such as Massachusetts and Vermont on such issues as the state budget. Kentucky and Tennessee, states out of reach for Democratic nominees for President, have voted for Democratic Governors.  What does such prove in nationwide elections? Practically nothing.

People vote for Congressional Representatives on national issues such as Social Security, Medicare, Farm subsidies, federal taxation, foreign policy, and defense completely out of the scope of statewide politics.

I do not see Iowa as a D+ state in the Presidential election of 2020. It will likely revert to its old pattern of being about 1% or 2% more R than Wisconsin, which so far looks like the tipping-point state of 2020. Unless Arizona really swings D, Iowa will represent electoral votes #279 to #284 for a Democrat. But that is where Iowa was from 2000 to 2012. 

It is possible for a Democrat to barely win nationwide and not win Iowa. Such has not happened since 1976.

....Many assume a nearly-even nationwide election (and a 47-47 election as in 2016 re-elects Trump as Democrats simply run up the numbers in California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont while falling short in one of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). We are accustomed to close Presidential elections, 2008 being the only one close to a landslide in the 21st century and then only because of an economic meltdown happening at the worst possible time for the Republican nominee. I look at the rating pattern for Trump in contrast to those of Clinton, Dubya, and Obama -- and Trump is already way behind his predecessors. He has his work cut out. 

It is easy to offer explanations for such -- but those are interpretations. We all choose ours. I have a bias in despising President Trump; I thought him a horrible person before he ran for President, and he has done nothing to convince me otherwise. I see him as intellectually hollow, extremely narcissistic, unimaginative, and amoral. I see his political skill entirely in accepting a canned ideology (mirror-image Marxism) and in riling people full of resentments at the expense of a complete lack of understanding of history and the demographic change that shapes America.

A Presidential election between "Generic Democrat" and "Generic Republican" in 2020 goes to the Republican. Trump can get re-elected he can cast his opponent as a dangerous radical and a threat to such prosperity as we have.

It is hardly surprising that as a liberal I hit the President from the Left. Trump is a believer in monopoly capitalism at its rawest and most inequitable, someone who believes that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as such brings about the gain, indulgence, and power of his class. That is a Marxist stereotype of capitalism, one that capitalists wisely seek to deny through a consumer economy that gives workers more of a stake in the system than cause to rebel at the first chance. It may also be true that I have more tolerance for zaniness on the Left than on the Right -- that is something that I cannot judge on my own due to my own bias. But I can hit him from the Right on foreign policy and his budgetary proposals. We would be better off with spending the proposed money on  highways than on a graft-filled, environmentally-destructive, budget-busting, and ultimately useless border wall.  So upgrade California 86 to an Interstate, rush Interstate 11 (Las Vegas to Phoenix) in Arizona, and extend Interstate 27 southward to Intestate 10, whether through Midland-Odessa or Abilene. (I can't see what highway project would well serve New Mexico best).     

[American2020]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/04/politics/cnn-poll-shutdown-funding-agreement-unlikely/index.html

[Thatkat04]

Nancy Pelosi's numbers are almost above water in the CNN poll. Not so much of a Boogeyman now.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Pelosi has a 42% favorable rating (47% unfavorable), on par with Trump's and the highest it's been since April 2007.

The GOP has officially lost their biggest weapon against the Democrats.

[GeorgiaModerate]

In the spirit of giving credit where it's due, I will give Trump kudos as being the only person who could have accomplished making Nancy Pelosi (almost) popular.

[GeorgiaModerate]

IBD/TIPP, Jan. 24-Feb. 1, 905 adults

Approve 39 (-3)
Disapprove 57 (+3)

[Bandit3 the Worker]

IBD/TIPP, Jan. 24-Feb. 1, 905 adults

Approve 39 (-3)
Disapprove 57 (+3)

Another log lands on the fire, so I don't know why 538.com has been stable the last few days.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Morning Consult/Politico, Feb. 1-2, 1993 RV

Approve 41 (+1)
Disapprove 56 (+1)

Strongly disapprove 22 (+1)
Strongly disapprove 44 (+1)

[GeorgiaModerate]

IBD/TIPP, Jan. 24-Feb. 1, 905 adults

Approve 39 (-3)
Disapprove 57 (+3)

Another log lands on the fire, so I don't know why 538.com has been stable the last few days.

When the average is around 40/56, numbers like this won't move the needle very much.  Also, the daily trackers (Harris, Ras, and YouGov) have recovered just a bit in the last few days.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Pelosi has a 42% favorable rating (47% unfavorable), on par with Trump's and the highest it's been since April 2007.

The GOP has officially lost their biggest weapon against the Democrats.

Perhaps this could bode well for the eventual Democratic nominee too. Perhaps.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Pelosi has a 42% favorable rating (47% unfavorable), on par with Trump's and the highest it's been since April 2007.

The GOP has officially lost their biggest weapon against the Democrats.

Perhaps this could bode well for the eventual Democratic nominee too. Perhaps.

Agreed. It also shows Democrats from all over the spectrum are gathering behind her. Good sign of party unity.

It also shows the Democrats should use McConnell as a boogeyman for the 2020 Senate races since he's stuck in the high 20s and a large chunk of Republicans despise him. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Pelosi has a 42% favorable rating (47% unfavorable), on par with Trump's and the highest it's been since April 2007.

The GOP has officially lost their biggest weapon against the Democrats.

Perhaps this could bode well for the eventual Democratic nominee too. Perhaps.

Agreed. It also shows Democrats from all over the spectrum are gathering behind her. Good sign of party unity.

I really hope so. I'm still not confident that Democrats can unite around or against anything in big enough numbers.

[Devout Centrist]

Pretty ominous that Trump's numbers haven't improved since the Shutdown. I know the SOTU is today, but the boost from that is pretty ephemeral.

[tagimaucia]

Yes, very ominous.  The 538 approval index is definitely a lagging indicator, but it usually begins to pick up change after a week or so, and it isn't really showing the slightest sign of any rebound.

Does anyone think Trump has a shot of winning reelection if there's even a general economic slowdown in 2020 (like, say, <1.5% GDP growth), much less a full blown "official" recession? Barring some black swan event like a major scandal with the democratic nominee, I really don't see him having a path to victory unless the direction of the economy stays fairly static, or gets even better.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Trump was hurt by the wall/shutdown fiasco.  That's not over yet; it's only paused, and most people that care about it know that.  So it's reasonable that his approval numbers have steadied but not recovered since the government reopened.   Check back in a couple weeks after the next deadline has passed.

[BlueSwan]

Pretty ominous that Trump's numbers haven't improved since the Shutdown. I know the SOTU is today, but the boost from that is pretty ephemeral.

I think the SOTU speech bounce could be significant given the soft support potential Trump has. Every time he goes a few weeks without doing anything immensely stupid (at least to the public knowledge) his numbers tend to improve.