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
Why Donald Trumps Approval Rating Is So High Among Republicans
As the U.S. experienced mass unrest over police brutality and racial inequality, a huge spike in unemployment, and on the current count more than 116,000 coronavirus deaths, President Donald Trumps approval rating took an unsurprising turn for the worse.
But there is one group of voters who have remained squarely in Trumps corner in spite of the triple crises facing the nation: Republicans.
Over the past few months, the president has frequently gloated about his high party-approval figures. Tweeting about his approval rating among Republicans on Tuesday night, Trump wrote: 96% Approval Rating in the Republican Party. Thank you!
As The Washington Post reported at the end of May, the presidents evidence-free claim to have a 96 percent approval rating among GOP voters is not grounded in actual polling data.
Nevertheless, his rating among the Republican base has been consistently high over the last three months.
A new Morning Consult/Politico poll of 653 Republicans found 83 percent approved of Trumps record, a fall of only 5 percentage points from the pollsters March survey. The latest poll, conducted between June 12 to 14, has a 2 percentage point margin of error.
So how has the presidents approval rating among Republicans stayed so high, even amid unrest over race relations, unemployment, and public health?
Why Has Bidens Approval Rating Gotten So Low So Quickly
A FiveThirtyEight Chat
Welcome to FiveThirtyEights politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarah : President Bidens approval ratings are underwater 49.2 percent disapprove of the job he is doing as president while 44.6 percent approve, according to FiveThirtyEights presidential approval tracker.1
This has been true for a while now, too. Since Aug. 30, more Americans have disapproved of Biden than have approved of him.
So, lets tackle Bidens declining approval rating in three parts. First, what do we know about why his approval rating has dipped? Second, how should we think about this current dip? That is, is it unusually large or actually pretty normal? And, finally, how much do presidents approval ratings matter, especially at this point in their presidency?
OK, first up, why has Bidens approval rating dipped?
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What Would Make You Change Your Mind About Donald J Trump
When Michael Tesler, a political scientist at the University of California Irvine, tries to explain the amazing stability of Trumps approval in his classes, he starts with a question. He asks his students if theres anything Trump could do to make them support him. And hes invariably met by a sea of shaking heads. If you went into Trumps presidency thinking hes a racist, sexist, xenophobic, immoral, narcissistic, corrupt, and incompetent person beliefs held by most Clinton voters then theres literally almost nothing he could do to change your mind, says Tesler.
The same is true in reverse. If you see Trump as the protector of Western Civilization, as Charlie Kirk called him the other night at the RNC, or the protector of white America, as Desmond King and Rogers Smith have called him, defending cherished American values from atheist, left-wing socialists who want to take your guns and put Cory Booker in charge of diversifying your neighborhoods, then theres almost nothing that would make you abandon him, Tesler continues.
But how do we know if were being governed with a bare level of competence?
Approval Ratings Of Past Presidents
Donald Trump
When former-President Trump left office, his disapproval rate stood at fifty-seven percent, with 38.6 percent of the public supporting him. The highest approval rating Trump had while in office was in In April, Congress passed the CARES Act which distributed the first round of stimulus checks and bolstered unemployment benefits for the more than twenty-million workers who lost their jobs.
However, a few short months later, Donald Trumps approval rating took a nose dive to its lowest point in his presidency as he left office —in part as a result of the events on January 6th.
Barack Obama
When former-president Obama was elected, he entered office with a historic approval rating of sixty-four percent. However, with the impacts of the financial crisis led this level of support to began to fall. Aside from a few peaks in popularity, the majority of Obamas term, the disapproval rate was above fifty percent. However, unlike Donald Trump, he left office with a net positive approval rate.
George W. Bush
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President Bidens Approval Rating Has Hit Its Lowest Level During Is Tenure We Took A Look Back At The Rates For Past Presidents
President Bidens approval rating is hovering under forty-percent, raising concerns over how the numbers will impact the performance of Democrats this fall. FiveThirtyEight has tracked President Bidens approval rating at 38.4 percent, just under the level of support for Donald Trump had when he left office.
.@NateSilver538 breaks down possible reasons why Pres. Bidens poll numbers have dropped:
This Week
Donald Trump has yet to announce his candidacy but if reports are correct, and he does plan to run again, we could see the two face off again in 2024. Many Republicans running across the country have incorporated the idea that 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. In a recent poll by Quinnipiac University, only fifteen percent of voters said that this would make them more likely to vote for a candidate. More than third of respondents said that this would have no impact on their decision to vote for a candidate, which is a bit shocking.
It could be that the approval rating of the president is falling because of the high levels of economic uncertainty. The same Quinnipiac poll found that only thirty-six percent of respondents believed that the president had a lot of power to control inflation. Interestingly sixty-five percent of Republicans were on this opinion, whereas only ten percent of Democrats agreed that the president has the power to lower prices.
A different question
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.
In the last month YouGov has also reported approval ratings of 44% and 50%, he said. Taken as a group it is more accurate to say that Bidens rating is hovering in the mid-40s.
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Polls Put Trumps Approval Rating Lower
Despite the recent decline in Biden’s approval, Trump’s ratings were lower during his time in office.
“Biden’s approval rating has clearly taken a turn for the worse in the past several weeks, but he is still faring better than Trump at this point in their presidencies,” Burden said. “Trump had one of the lowest and steadiest approval ratings of any modern president.”
FiveThirtyEight put the polling average for Trump’s approval rating at 38.8% on Sept. 9, 2017, his first year in office. The lowest point of his term came on Dec. 16, 2017, with an average approval rate of 36.4%.
This claim is also wrong looking only at the YouGov poll.
YouGov reported Trumps approval rating never increased far above 40% and reached a term low of 34% in a poll conducted Nov. 10-14, 2017.
In other words, Trump’s low is well below Biden’s current level in YouGov polling.
According to Gallup, Trumps approval rating ranged between 34% and 49% over the course of his presidency. Trump hit the lower end of that range in January, following the insurrection at the Capitol.
Ballotpedias Polling Index: Comparison Of Opinion Polling During The Trump And Biden Administrations
| Policy positions |
Weeks covered: 36
This page compares overall trends in opinion polling averages during the presidency of Joe Biden to those during the presidency of Donald Trump . Ballotpedias polling indexes are an average of polls that measure public sentiment on presidential job approval, congressional job approval, and satisfaction with the overall direction of the country.
Ballotpedias polling indexes are updated every weekday based on opinion polls released by qualifying sources. The most recent poll released by each qualifying source is included in the overall polling average. Polls are removed from the average when the same source releases a more recent poll or 30 days after the poll was last in the field, whichever occurred first. This page looks at these polling numbers on a week-over-week basis, starting with the first full workweek of the new presidents term. This means that the numbers on this page are all weekly averages of daily average poll results.
To view the current polling index, click here. For a detailed look at opinion polling during the Trump administration, including a full list of qualifying polls taken, click here.
HIGHLIGHTS
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Direction Of The Country
HIGHLIGHTS
| Direction of the country rating, 2017-2021 |
|---|
| Year |
| Polling indexes: Opinion polling during the Trump administration |
During President Donald Trumps term, Ballotpedia tracked 2,895 approval polls from 21 polling firms that asked voters about the direction of the country and their approval of Congress and President Trumps job performance. This page is an overview of opinion polling averages during Trumps term. Ballotpedias polling indexes are an average of polls that measure public sentiment on presidential job approval, congressional job approval, and satisfaction with the overall direction of the country.
On this page, you will find coverage of three polling averages:
Trumps Approval Rating Craters In Final Days
After four years of stability, the outgoing presidents poll numbers have reached new lows following last weeks Capitol insurrection.
President Donald Trumps slide means he will leave the Oval Office historically unpopular compared with most of his predecessors.
01/13/2021 06:00 AM EST
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Jonah Goldberg: Theory On Why Trump Approval Rating So High
EARLY MONDAY morning, Donald Trump tweeted: 94% Approval Rating in the Republican Party, a record. Thank you!
Where the President got this specific number remains a mystery. Recent polls by YouGov put his GOP approval roughly 10 points lower, and Gallup, which has tracked Trumps popularity since he took office, puts him at 88 percent.
But I suppose we shouldnt be surprised that Trump used his Sharpie to round up his score. Hes deeply invested in being or at least claiming to be the most popular Republican President in history. In July of 2018, he announced: I am the most popular person in the history of the GOP. Beating Lincoln, Trump added. I beat our Honest Abe.
For what its worth, polling in the 1860s wasnt exactly reliable. But even if Trumps oft-repeated 94 percent number were accurate, and even if it beat Lincolns ratings, it still wouldnt beat George W. Bushs 99 percent after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Why the President feels the need to embellish is already a well-spelunked psychological rabbit hole. But even ignoring his exaggerations, he is consistently hitting in the mid- to high 80s with Republicans in polling, which demands a question: Why are his actual numbers so high?
George W. Bushs 99 percent might offer some insight. Americans generally rally around a President during a war or national crisis. But members of the Presidents own party in particular can be counted on to fall in line.
Critically Trumps Presidency Has Come During A Period Of Historically Extreme Partisan Polarisation The Partisan Approval Gap The Difference Between Democratic And Republican Approval Is Larger For Trump Than For Any Prior President
Do the laws of political gravity simply not apply to this president?
Comparing Trump to George W. Bush, the last Republican president, shows how unusual this situation is. Trumps approval rating for the first half of 2020 is 91% compared with 69% Republican approval for Bush in the first half of 2008.
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Who Are The Voters Behind Trumps Higher Approval Rating
Despite the presidents slow performance on the coronavirus and his series of falsehoods, some independent voters and Democrats are giving him a measure of credit for his handling of the crisis.
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By Trip Gabriel and Lisa Lerer
Justin Penn, a Pittsburgh voter who calls himself politically independent, favored Joseph R. Biden Jr. in a matchup with President Trump until recently. But the presidents performance during the coronavirus outbreak has Mr. Penn reconsidering.
I think hes handled it pretty well, he said of the president, whose daily White House appearances Mr. Penn catches on Facebook after returning from his job as a bank security guard. I think hes tried to keep people calm, he said. I know some people dont think hes taking it seriously, but I think hes doing the best with the information he had.
Although Mr. Penn, 40, said he did not vote for Mr. Trump, his opinion of the president has improved recently and he very well might back him for a second term.
While Republicans views of Mr. Trump were flat a sign they had already topped out approval by independents rose by eight percentage points from early March, while Democratic approval was up by six percentage points.
How Do Americans View Bidens Handling Of The Pandemic And The Economy
Most Americans think Biden is handling the coronavirus pandemic far better than Trump. Sixty-two percent approve of how Biden has managed the U.S. response so far. Another 30 percent say they disapprove.
Chart by Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour
The publics approval of Bidens actions far exceeds that earned by Trumps leadership during the pandemic. His highest approval rating was 18 points lower, at 44 percent in March 2020, the same month the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic and Trump labeled it a public health emergency. From there, his approval on handling the pandemic dropped as low as 37 percent, recovering slightly to 39 percent by the time he left office in January.
But Americans have less faith in Bidens ability to heal the nations wounded economy compared to Trump. While 46 percent of U.S. adults approve of how Biden has managed the economy, another 41 percent do not approve. During Trumps last days in office, half of Americans said they approved of the former presidents handling of the economy, a sentiment thatTrump leveraged throughout his presidency and in his 2020 campaign for a second term.
Keanu Adams, 25, of Vacaville, California, said he voted for Biden and hopes the president recognizes the country needs more than public health and economic fixes right now.
The nation needs to uproot systemic problems to address what is really wrong, Adams said.
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