Trump approval ratings thread, 1.4

[pbrower2a]

...and a reminder on how the votes come in as polls close in the various states:

[Badger]

A late poll dividing one of the closest states to being a microcosm of America in politics by its own regions:



Northwest Ohio contains one fairly-large city (Toledo), one large college town (Bowling Green), the urban wreck that is Lima, and miles and miles of farmland.  The only county that he lost in northwest Ohio was Lucas County (most of greater Toledo). 100-DIS suggests that he would lose Lucas County even bigger and at least lose Wood County.

Northeast Ohio includes the old industrial cities of Cleveland(Cuyahoga), Akron (Summit), Canton (Stark), Lorain and Elyria (Lorain), and Youngstown (Mahoning).  Trump lost only Cuyahoga, Lorain, Summit, and Mahoning Counties in this region. I expect him to lose more here. 

Central Ohio is Greater Columbus in an otherwise-rural area, but Columbus is huge. Trump might win everything but Scioto County, which contains Greater Columbus. But Columbus is the only growing large city in Ohio, and it is not his friend.

Approval and disapproval are nearly equal in southwestern Ohio, containing Cincinnati, Dayton, and some smaller cities. Trump lost only Hamilton Country (Cincinnati). I can easily see him losing Montgomery County (Dayton). With the approval numbers for this region, he will barely win or lose it while losing northwest, northeast, and central Ohio.

Now for the good news for the President: he will not lose Ohio's southeast, most of which seems more like Kentucky or West Virginia, both of which he will win in 2020 -- if not by the overwhelming numbers that he had in 2016. Trump did lose Athens County and will lose it again -- but he won't lose anything else in southeastern Ohio. 



2016 in Ohio, decisive Trump win:
 


2012 in Ohio, bare Obama win:

First off, Scioto is not Central Ohio. It's directly south on the point.

Secondly, Don't assume Trump will only lose Athens County in the SE. IF (big if) we're including 08 and 12 in the consideration along with 16, don't forget Obama very narrowly lost Hocking, Perry, Ross, Pike (by only 1 vote in 2012!), and Scioto. Yes, the area swung yugely for Trump, but anyone want to give me a reason it can't swing back just as hard against President Billionaire?

[OneJ]

NBC/Marist - Missouri - 10/30-11/1 - 600 LV
Trump Approval vs. (September) -
% Approve: 51% (45%)
% Disapprove: 44% (46%)

920 RV
Trump Approval now vs. (September) -
% Approve: 51% (44%)
% Disapprove: 44% (46%)

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/05/politics/cnn-poll-midterms-democrats-advantage/index.html
http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/11/04/rel10a.-.2018.pdf

CNN/SSRS, Nov. 1-3, 1518 adults including 1380 RV and 1151 LV (change from early Oct. where available)

Adults:

Approve 39 (-2)
Disapprove 55 (+3)

Strongly approve 30
Strongly disapprove 45

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RV:

GCB: D 53 (+2), R 42 (nc)

LV:

Approve 41
Disapprove 57

Strongly approve 35
Strongly approve 52

GCB: D 55 (+1), R 42 (+1)

[Brittain33]

CNN, leaving it all on the field.

[GeorgiaModerate]

CNN, leaving it all on the field.

You have to admire them for not herding.

[pbrower2a]

Outliers can reflect events. Cesar Sayoc and Robert Bowers may have sobered many Americans about the hatred that spews from the President, his political allies, and his journalistic enablers.

Such is my interpretation.

[pbrower2a]

Excuse me -- Columbus is in Franklin County, if on the Scioto River.

[Virginiá]

I'm confused - we aren't even close to maxing out the page limit on the old thread.

[pbrower2a]

It's because I expect the President's behavior to change after the election. Also, the states polled will change. Because no Senate seat is up for grabs in North Carolina, I have seen few polls for North Carolina, as an illustration. If Republicans hold onto both Houses of Congress, then this thread will be pointless and I will delete it. Otherwise, I want to start anew on this discussion between now and the inauguration of the 116th Congress.

The big change that the 2018 elections will be over, and the 2020 elections will start becoming relevant. The President's approval rating will be extremely relevant until we see something more telling -- like matchups between the President and potential Democratic nominees.

We will see exploratory committees form. We will see potential candidates enter and leave the contest for nomination. Events will happen. You didn't expect some Trump supporter to be caught for mailing bombs, did you? Neither did I. You didn't expect someone to shoot up a synagogue and kill eleven Jews at a religious service? Neither did I.

The story changes abruptly on Tuesday and in early January of next year.

[Virginiá]

Alright, fair enough. But fwiw I think it's a bad idea to just keep changing threads when it's not necessary, at least concerning continuity in threads. It's bad enough we have to adhere to a 2k post limit.

[pbrower2a]

This explains why I pay attention to approval polls; for now they are the best proxy for imaginable matchups.

SurveyMonkey national poll, conducted Oct. 24-30:

https://www.axios.com/trumps-women-problem-2020-poll-05a62799-a63d-422b-afb7-59b0139794f1.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e4uuLe_91JtRaDtpFucs1ffPSvVrBgsf/view

The poll pits Trump against various Democratic women in a hypothetical 2020 presidential matchup.  Michelle Obama does the best, and Warren does the worst.  Here are the #s:

M. Obama 55%
Trump 42%

Winfrey 53%
Trump 41%

Harris 52%
Trump 42%

Klobuchar 51%
Trump 42%

Gillibrand 50%
Trump 44%

H. Clinton 50%
Trump 45%

Warren 49%
Trump 47%

UPDATE: If you go to the spreadsheet with the crosstabs, you'll find that this isn't just the female candidates in this poll, though that's all the Axios story talked about.  They also have matchups with Trump vs. Biden and vs. Avenatti, plus a few 3-way races with Bloomberg as a 3rd party candidate:

Biden 53%
Trump 44%

Trump 47%
Avenatti 43%

3-way:
Biden 44%
Trump 43%
Bloomberg 10%

Trump 45%
Warren 34%
Bloomberg 17%

Trump 45%
Bloomberg 33%
Avenatti 14%

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

Bloomberg as a third-party or independent nominee would make a Trump re-election possible. Trump apparently loses little to Bloomberg, but seemingly every imaginable Democrat does.

Except against Avenatti (a near unknown), Trump loses any binary race. He would be closest to Elizabeth Warren, and close enough that if the electoral college gave President Trump an edge in some key states, he would win while she wins gigantic percentages of the vote in strongly D states. See 2016 for that.

Of those with some political experience, Klobuchar looks as if she could win a landslide against Trump.

[pbrower2a]

As a reminder: the approval (and especially disapproval) numbers are at best proxies for the election. Example:

SurveyMonkey national poll, conducted Oct. 24-30:

https://www.axios.com/trumps-women-problem-2020-poll-05a62799-a63d-422b-afb7-59b0139794f1.html
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e4uuLe_91JtRaDtpFucs1ffPSvVrBgsf/view

The poll pits Trump against various Democratic women in a hypothetical 2020 presidential matchup.  Michelle Obama does the best, and Warren does the worst.  Here are the #s:

M. Obama 55%
Trump 42%

Winfrey 53%
Trump 41%

Harris 52%
Trump 42%

Klobuchar 51%
Trump 42%

Gillibrand 50%
Trump 44%

H. Clinton 50%
Trump 45%

Warren 49%
Trump 47%

UPDATE: If you go to the spreadsheet with the crosstabs, you'll find that this isn't just the female candidates in this poll, though that's all the Axios story talked about.  They also have matchups with Trump vs. Biden and vs. Avenatti, plus a few 3-way races with Bloomberg as a 3rd party candidate:

Biden 53%
Trump 44%

Trump 47%
Avenatti 43%

3-way:
Biden 44%
Trump 43%
Bloomberg 10%

Trump 45%
Warren 34%
Bloomberg 17%

Trump 45%
Bloomberg 33%
Avenatti 14%

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

Not very often have we seen matchups involving the President and potential Presidential nominees, but we do here. Trump could reach 47% of the popular vote against a weak opponent, and this is consistent with a disapproval number of 53%, providing that he can campaign effectively enough to pick off all undecided voters.

Ruling out the two female non-politicians, I look at Klobuchar, and I see someone who could win anywhere from 51-42 to 51-47. 51-42 is fairly close to the level of a win that Reagan got in 1980, which is consistent with a failed Presidency and a third-party or independent nominee capable of picking up 6%  of the popular vote. 51-47 is about like Obama 2012, and that is the best that I can see for Trump. That third-party or independent nominee would have to be on the Right; Bloomberg, who looks more like another Ross Perot, would pick up more from would-be Democratic voters than from Trump. 

I focused on Klobuchar, who I believe would be a strong opponent of Trump. For her, total favorable is 20% among registered voters and 12% is unfavorable. 66% don't know enough to say.  Roughly 30% of Americans who will vote in 2020 prefer her to Trump even if they do not know here well enough to decide whether she would be a good choice or a bad choice. Trump is that awful!   

[junior chįmp]

My fellow MAGAs....I dont wanna brag but.... But Trump did it again....under budger and ahead of schedule:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1059465026896084992

[GeorgiaModerate]

Gallup weekly: 40/54, same as last week.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Avenetti is the John Edwards of 2020, they should stop including him in polls with Trump

[Brittain33]

Avenetti is the John Edwards of 2020, they should stop including him in polls with Trump

Especially in job approval polls. What’s up with that?

[Donald Trump’s Toupée]

Avenetti is the John Edwards of 2020, they should stop including him in polls with Trump

Avenetti is more of a clown than Trump was when he began campaigining. Avenetti is such a sleazeball, it's embarrassing. I cringe whenever I see him on TV.

Not to mention, he's going to be prosecuted for his role in Kavanaugh, I'm almost certain of it.

[pbrower2a]

With the ambiguous result of the 2018 election (Democrats winning the House and a raft of Governorships, but taking huge losses in the Senate), starting the 1.5 thread has proved premature.

[Absolution9]

Pbrower2a, are you sure he can't win with those numbers assuming the economy holds up?  48-52 in Wisconsin is awfully close and that's all he need if he gets OH/FL/NC/IA which all look positive (especially IA if he gets a symbolic trade war victory with China). It also says nothing about his competition.  If the Dems pick a Midwesterner with good cultural ties to the region or someone like Biden they should definitely win a close one.  If they pick someone like Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren I see them as underdogs.

[Doimper]

Remember how bad his favorables were in 2016? Bad approvals don't mean sh**t if the media decides to EMAILLLSS the Democrat in 2020.

[pbrower2a]

Pbrower2a, are you sure he can't win with those numbers assuming the economy holds up?  48-52 in Wisconsin is awfully close and that's all he need if he gets OH/FL/NC/IA which all look positive (especially IA if he gets a symbolic trade war victory with China). It also says nothing about his competition.  If the Dems pick a Midwesterner with good cultural ties to the region or someone like Biden they should definitely win a close one.  If they pick someone like Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren I see them as underdogs.

We are in new territory with this President -- someone with huge failures of ethics.  It may be difficult to compare ethical failures to a depression (Hoover) or stagflation (Carter), or even having no idea of what to do next (the elder Bush). Those are the last three Presidents to get clobbered in a bid for re-election.

Trump has one huge asset: the Right tolerates his foibles. Liberals would never tolerate craziness, corruption, or cruelty by their own -- but right-wingers do. A paper that I read suggested that people decidedly right-of-center can moralize about any offense of liberals and radicals but tolerate moral rottenness from their own. Among people actually voting in the 2018 election, the divide between approval and disapproval for the President is a horrid 45-54  The pattern of voting is consistent with the President getting 45% of the popular vote, as shown in races for the House and Governorships. The Senate? Republicans had far more opportunities for gain than loss and did not gain as much as they would have had the President been more popular.

Take away 1% of the popular vote from Trump in an even swing from 2016, and weaken  the vote for the Green Party, and the Democratic nominee wins Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin at the least. Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and even Texas -- none of which Trump can afford to see flip -- get iffy.

Right-wingers tend to have severe pessimism about human nature, believing that behind the civilized veneer of people is a monster of dishonesty, lust, betrayal, greed, and unruliness. They expect the worst in human nature and are not disappointed when they find it. Distrustful as they are, one might expect them  to be more cautious in their business dealings -- but instead they show gullibility in refusing to abandon an alluring opportunity. They accept the rogue as the norm instead of someone to avoided at all costs, because the rogue might be useful.

Liberals may accept a former rogue who shows convincing contrition. Redemption is possible, but difficult. Typically one must assert that what one did in the past was wrong, that one would discourage anyone from doing the same, and perhaps even that such behavior is no longer good for the person. Destroying objects associated with a bad cause (like  Nazi, KKK, or commie $#!+), breaking old connections with suspect causes, repudiating people associated with such a cause, and changing old patterns of language are overt signs.

Here's something that I posted two years ago on another website related to historical patterns.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Remember how bad his favorables were in 2016? Bad approvals don't mean sh**t if the media decides to EMAILLLSS the Democrat in 2020.

Or Hamilton tickets.

[Thatkat04]

So how accurate do you guys think the 44/55 exit poll approval numbers are?

Edit: Although it appears CNN's exit poll adjusted it to 45/54.

[Absolution9]

Pbrower2a, are you sure he can't win with those numbers assuming the economy holds up?  48-52 in Wisconsin is awfully close and that's all he need if he gets OH/FL/NC/IA which all look positive (especially IA if he gets a symbolic trade war victory with China). It also says nothing about his competition.  If the Dems pick a Midwesterner with good cultural ties to the region or someone like Biden they should definitely win a close one.  If they pick someone like Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren I see them as underdogs.

We are in new territory with this President -- someone with huge failures of ethics.  It may be difficult to compare ethical failures to a depression (Hoover) or stagflation (Carter), or even having no idea of what to do next (the elder Bush). Those are the last three Presidents to get clobbered in a bid for re-election.

Trump has one huge asset: the Right tolerates his foibles. Liberals would never tolerate craziness, corruption, or cruelty by their own -- but right-wingers do. A paper that I read suggested that people decidedly right-of-center can moralize about any offense of liberals and radicals but tolerate moral rottenness from their own. Among people actually voting in the 2018 election, the divide between approval and disapproval for the President is a horrid 45-54  The pattern of voting is consistent with the President getting 45% of the popular vote, as shown in races for the House and Governorships. The Senate? Republicans had far more opportunities for gain than loss and did not gain as much as they would have had the President been more popular.

Take away 1% of the popular vote from Trump in an even swing from 2016, and weaken  the vote for the Green Party, and the Democratic nominee wins Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin at the least. Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and even Texas -- none of which Trump can afford to see flip -- get iffy.

Right-wingers tend to have severe pessimism about human nature, believing that behind the civilized veneer of people is a monster of dishonesty, lust, betrayal, greed, and unruliness. They expect the worst in human nature and are not disappointed when they find it. Distrustful as they are, one might expect them  to be more cautious in their business dealings -- but instead they show gullibility in refusing to abandon an alluring opportunity. They accept the rogue as the norm instead of someone to avoided at all costs, because the rogue might be useful.

Liberals may accept a former rogue who shows convincing contrition. Redemption is possible, but difficult. Typically one must assert that what one did in the past was wrong, that one would discourage anyone from doing the same, and perhaps even that such behavior is no longer good for the person. Destroying objects associated with a bad cause (like  Nazi, KKK, or commie $#!+), breaking old connections with suspect causes, repudiating people associated with such a cause, and changing old patterns of language are overt signs.

Here's something that I posted two years ago on another website related to historical patterns.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I don't broadly disagree with what you are saying but I do think there are other factors at play than just Trump's personality.  

The three presidents you mention all faced recessions, HW Bush likely wouldn't have lost without the 1991-1992 downturn.  His reaction to it was dismissive and that gave Clinton an opportunity to seem far more in touch with people's struggles.  

For certain groups of white people (some of them former Democrats) there exists a demographic concern that is deep seated within human psychology.  They fear sometimes only semi consciously that a decline in power and position for people that look like them or that they identify with will result in an uncertain future for them, their relations, and their descendants.  This isn't totally illogical as for most of human history it wasn't a good idea to cede power even in the name of equality or brotherhood among peoples.  The result of being less powerful was that you and yours were now within someone else's power to do with as they please.  

Obviously modern society on the back of the scientific rev/industrial rev/enlightenment has created systems that protect the less powerful to some extent but it is still a difficult proposition for some to embrace especially less educated people living in non cosmopolitan areas.

Trump has this cross over base (mostly Repubs but some Dems as well) along with the more traditional elements of the Republican party (some of the traditional elements are within this group as well).  His main task is to mobilize them without overtly going against their class interests which include access to healthcare, higher blue collar wages,  etc.  So far due to his reliance on the Republican congress, the agenda of which is toxic to many in this group, he has faired poorly in that task.  Even so I don't think he has lost enough support to make him uncompetitive in general election as long as he isn't facing economic headwinds.  His opponent is a key part of that equation though.

Now that Republicans have lost congress the question becomes will Democrats give Trump cover to piggyback on policies that are popular with this cross over group (basic infrastructure, etc)  without insisting on conditions that will be unpalatable to other groups within the Repub coalition (green infrastructure mandates, municipal broadband, tax increases on the wealthy, etc).  I think they would be foolish to give Trump that cover but the congress just might do it as there are many new members eager to bring back pork to their districts.  I just saw the new Michigan Gov say that she will be laser focused on basic infrastructure.  Trump will use that effectively if the Dems let him and it could seriously increase his popularity in the upper Midwest especially.