Baggage Is As Baggage Does
There are three things which could, in principle, make Mr Trump less formidable: the depredations of age, legal sanctions and political misjudgments. On the first, at 76 a sudden, severe deterioration in health is obviously possible. That said, the former president appears hale and hearty.
His legal jeopardy seems more acute. The fbis dropping by Mar-a-Lago is only one of his problems. His business dealings are under investigation in New York. The House Committee on Ways and Means is making progress in its efforts to look at his tax records. State prosecutors in Georgia have empanelled a grand jury that is investigating his exhortation that Mr Raffensperger find 11,780 votes somewhere in the state in order to overturn his election loss. It has already issued subpoenas to compel testimony from allies such as Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trumps lawyer, and Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina. Investigators at the Department of Justice are closely following the work of the January 6th committee and have been seizing mobile phones and documents from those most closely involved in the efforts to keep Mr Trump in power.
The possibility of indictments may hasten Mr Trumps announcement of his candidacy, the better to play the victim. Casting the prosecution of a presidential candidate as a deep-state conspiracy is peculiarly compelling.
Court Date Set For Thursday
The next courtroom drama over the search will come on Thursday in a hearing called by a federal judge to hear Trumps demand for an independent special master to filter the material taken by the FBI to see whether it contains legally privileged materials.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon asked the Department of Justice to file a public response by Tuesday and also to file under seal records going into greater detail about what was taken in the search. She said on Saturday she had a preliminary intent to grant Trumps request, but added at the end of the order that it should not be construed as her final decision on the matter.
The fact that Cannon, a Trump nominee, gave an indication she might grant his request has been greeted by some of the ex-Presidents allies on social media as a victory. But such a move is not considered unreasonable by legal experts in a case like this. The curiosity here is that Trump did not make his request until the government had been in possession of the documents the FBI took from Mar-a-Lago for two weeks a factor that has raised questions about chaos within his camp, his strategy and the quality of his legal representation, which had been ordered to submit a new filing after the judge identified several shortcomings in the initial request.
Nyc Democratic House Candidate Announces Positive Covid
Ben Kamisar
WASHINGTON New York City Democratic House candidate Suraj Patel has tested positive for COVID-19, he confirmed in a new statement Monday.
Patel, one of the candidates featured in a recent MTP Blog story about how the new social distancing guidelines and the threat of coronavirus has fundamentally upended House campaigns, disclosed his positive test in a new statement posted on social media and on the blogging platform Medium.
He said he began developing symptoms earlier this month which he described as troubling tightness in my chest and difficulty breathing followed by a regular fever of 102 degrees. Patel lives with two doctors, one of whom is his brother, which he said underscored the need for him to test to see if had COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, so that his roommates would know whether they were at risk.
Patel said that ultimately, he and his two housemates all tested positive. But hes now fully recovered and asymptomatic.
New Yorkers and Americans at large are stepping up in a tremendous unified way. We know how important it is to our most vulnerable populations that we slow the growth of this COVID epidemic. But as this becomes less abstract and more personal when peoples loved ones start to show symptoms human nature is such that we are going to want certainty and safety, Patel wrote, before calling for universal COVID testing.
Patel is running in the Democratic primary against longtime Rep. Carolyn Maloney.
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Intelligence Agencies Assess The Damage
The political and legal shock waves surrounding the Mar-a-Lago search will play out this week as a behind-closed-doors investigation into the potential national security questions raised by Trumps apparently cavalier treatment of classified material gathers pace. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has sent a letter to the House Intelligence and House Oversight committee chairs, saying the intelligence community is conducting a damage assessment of the documents taken from Trumps home, according to a letter obtained by CNN on Saturday.
Polls Show Renewed Republican Rally Around Trump Following Mar
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The FBIs search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this month is potentially the most serious legal problem yet for Donald Trump, but it has also brought Republicans together around the former president. His approval rating ticked up in an NBC News poll released over the weekend, confirming an earlier survey that found GOP voters viewing him more favorably following the search. That Trump was planning a second run for the White House has been known practically since he left office, but the big outstanding question now is whether he will declare a new campaign before the November midterm elections and whether the investigation into his handling of classified materials will change his plans.
Heres what we can expect today:
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Expect more legal wrangling over Lindsey Grahams subpoena from a special grand jury in Georgia investigating election meddling by Trump officials.Over the weekend, a court temporarily stayed the summons, giving the Republican senator a reprieve from appearing before the panel.
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A federal judgehas again signaled his willingness to unseal at least part of the affidavit justifying the FBIs search of Mar-a-Lago, though a portion of it is likely to be redacted.
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Congress is in recess and Joe Biden is on vacation, which is why Washington is so quiet.
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Patrick Basham Says Americans Would Like Trump At Summer Bbq
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Republican figureheads have rallied around Mr Trump today after the FBI conducted a raid on Mar-a-Lago. They have accused the agency of making a “politicised” decision to pursue him, despite Mr Trump having appointed its incumbent director, Christopher Wray, in 2017. The ex-President himself has suggested officials wanted to undermine him as polls show he remains popular among his support base, and Express.co.uk has looked at the latest polls as he weighs a 2024 run.
So Why Do Republicans Still Have An Edge
Democrats might stem the tide or shore up their base, but Republicans still have a big lead among voters who prioritize inflation and the economy. Plus, a year of voter frustration over those issues won’t go away overnight, as shown by the belief of more voters that Republicans will prioritize inflation if they win control of Congress, than Democrats will if they win.
There are also just more safe Republican seats than Democratic ones in the House. Republicans need only to flip four competitive seats to win a majority. Our model indicates that they would be well positioned to do so if the elections were today.
This CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,126 registered voters interviewed between August 24-26, 2022. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as to 2020 presidential vote. The margin of error is ±2.4 points. The House seats estimates are based on a multilevel regression and post-stratification model incorporating voter responses to this survey. Each party’s seat estimate has a margin of error of ±13 seats.
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How Trumps Second Impeachment Will Work
To be sure, the national polls underestimated Trumps performance in the national election, which he lost by 4 percentage points after trailing in the RealClearPolitics average by 7 points and the FiveThirtyEight average by 8 points.
But the latest polls conducted over the past week all show significant drops in support for Trump from the previous measurements with one notable exception: Rasmussen Reports. The Republican-leaning automated pollster, which has typically produced stronger results for Trump, has shown that the presidents approval ratings have been virtually unaffected by last weeks events.
Trumps final approval rating is far from settled, given the congressional sprint to impeach him in the closing week of his presidency. But he is poised to go down as one of the most unpopular presidents upon leaving office.
Barack Obamas approval rating rose in the final weeks of his presidency, following Trumps upset victory in the 2016 election. According to theRealClearPolitics average, Obamas approval rating finished at 57 percent, rising about 5 points between the election and Trumps inauguration in January 2017.
Trump is likely to finish closer to Bushs final ratings: 34 percent in the finalGallup poll the best historical record for modern presidential approval and 29 percent in the closingRealClearPolitics average.
More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents:Toplines |Crosstabs
- Filed under:
United States Presidential Approval Rating
In the United States, presidential job approval ratings were first conducted by George Gallup to gauge public support for the president of the United States during their term. An approval rating is a percentage determined by polling which indicates the percentage of respondents to an opinion poll who approve of a particular person or program. Typically, an approval rating is given to a politician based on responses to a poll in which a sample of people are asked whether they approve or disapprove of that particular political figure. A question might ask: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way that the current president is handling their job as president?”
Like most surveys that measure opinions, individual poll results may be inaccurate. Many unscientific approval rating systems exist that show inaccurate statistics. Examples that self select, such as online questions are of this type however, the aggregate approval rating is generally accepted by statisticians as a statistically valid indicator of the comparative changes in the popular United States mood regarding a president.
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Polling Average Put Bidens Approval Rating Higher Than 39%
Experts say approval ratings should be calculated by looking at an average between polls not a single poll. On the day the claim was made, the polling average for Bidens approval rating was 45.2%.
The best practice to look at multiple polls and not to fixate on an individual poll, which can be cherry-picked to make inaccurate arguments,Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center and professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in an email.
The website FiveThirtyEight rates how different polls vary in terms of accuracy and statistical bias. It calculates approval ratings for presidents based on a weighted average that takes into account poll quality and uncertainty.
According to that polling average, Bidens approval rate was 45.2% on the day the claim was posted.
The Facebook post appeared to refer to an Economist/YouGov poll conducted Sept. 4-7. It reported 39% of American adults approved of Biden. YouGov noted this was the first time the majority of Americans disapproved of Biden during his presidency.
However, Burden told USA TODAY this poll was unusually low.
Tracking The Drop In Trumps Approval
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Among Democrats: December 30: – 71 January 9 – 10: – 80
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Among Independents / Third Party: December 30: – 7 January 9 – 10: – 27
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Among Republicans: December 30: + 74 January 9 – 10: + 60
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Among Trump 2020 voters: December 30: + 84 January 9 – 10: + 62
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Among Biden 2020 voters: December 30: – 84 January 9 – 10: – 85
In a survey fielded from the 9th to the 10th of this month, we find that the presidents job approval rating sits at minus 16-points . A majority of likely voters who self-identify as Democrats and as Independent / Third Party disapprove of Trump. Meanwhile, among likely voters who self-identify as Republicans, meanwhile, 80 percent approve of the job Trump is doing. We can also observe a close correlation between attitudes among partisans and 2020 voters. Eighty-one percent of self-reported Trump 2020 voters approve of the job hes doing just one point different than his approval number among Republicans and 92 percent of self-reported Biden 2020 voters disapprove two points different than his disapproval among Democrats.
When we look at responses broken out by partisanship, we see that a majority of voters who self-identify as Democrats and Independent / Third Party both support impeaching Trump. In contrast, 79 percent of self-identified Republicans oppose impeachment.
Isa Alomran is an intern at Data for Progress.
Ethan Winter is an analyst at Data for Progress.
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Data Download: The Numbers You Need To Know Today
58 percent: The share of Americans who say their bigger concern is making sure that everyone who wants to vote can do so, per new NBC News poll.
38 percent: The share who say their bigger concern is making sure that no one votes who is not eligible to vote.
1.6 million: The number of valid signatures collected by backers of the recall election against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, per the secretary of states office.
$400 million: How much the recall election could cost, according to the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials.
$15 an hour: The new minimum wage for federal contractors, starting in January, under an executive order that President Biden is set to sign.
89: The number of people New York fell short by in its count to retain one of its House seats.
32,276,517: The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States, per the most recent data from NBC News and health officials.
576,763: The number of deaths in the United States from the virus so far, per the most recent data from NBC News. (Thats 474 more than yesterday morning.
230,768,454: The number of vaccine doses administered in the U.S.
26.5 percent: The share of Americans who are fully vaccinated
2: The number of days left for Biden to reach his 100-day vaccination goal.
Sahil Kapur notes that Bidens first 100 days have been shaped in some ways by the first 100 days of his Democratic predecessor.
How high should the capital gains tax be? Heres what some experts have to say.
Republicans Support Donald Trump But Not As Much As He Said
President Donald Trump has a commanding hold on Republican voters, but it isnt as high as he says.
In a news conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May, a reporter asked Trump what he thought of Republican lawmakers who threatened to block his planned tariffs against Mexico.
“I think if they do, its foolish,” Trump said June 4. “Ive had tremendous Republican support. I have a 90% 94% approval rating, as of this morning, in the Republican Party. Thats an all-time record. Can you believe that? Isnt that something? I love records.”
Trump does enjoy strong support among Republican voters. But no public poll backs up the stellar performance he touted. We emailed the White House to point us to the poll Trump relied on. We did not hear back.
Looking at support among Republican voters, Trumps highest number in the latest polls is 87% from Gallup. CNN comes in second at 86%. The other four are lower.
All polls are based on surveys done at the end of May. No margin of error, among the polls that provide them, would be large enough to deliver the 94% that Trump claimed.
Trumps approval among Republicans has generally held in the mid-to-high 80s, which would qualify as robust. Gallup clocked in a slightly higher number of 90% in March and April. That sort of shift is within the normal variation in polling.
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Donald Trump’s Approval Rating Among Republicans Is Far Less Impressive Than He Suggests New Poll Indicates
President Donald Trump has often touted his strong approval ratings among Republican voters in recent weeks. But, according to poll data released Tuesday, that support may be far less impressive than he makes it out to be.
The survey, conducted by The Washington Post, originally found that Donald Trump’s approval rating among Republicans was about 85 percent. Those results were on par with similar polls done in recent months, including one by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News from July that found his approval rating among conservative voters was as high as 88 percent.
But then, the Post‘s split poll-takers who identified as Republican into three separate groups: people who strongly identify with the GOP, people who identify as Republican but not strongly and the remaining group who technically call themselves independents but say they lean toward the Republican Party. The results after these distinctions were made showed glaring discrepancies.
Trump’s overall approval rating for those who identified as strongly Republican is an overwhelming 93 percent. But voters who identified themselves in this category make up less than 20 percent of Americans likely to vote in elections.
On Sunday, Trump tweeted that his approval ratings are “very good” and that they may even lead to a “Red Wave” this November.
Do not underestimate the UNITY within the Republican Party!
Donald J. Trump
