Trump approval ratings thread, 1.4

[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.

[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.

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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.

[Absolution9]

I see Atlas is still overreacting to everything and pretending the same pattern that has occured like 100 times already regarding Trump's approval rating will stop happening.

"Trump's approval is cratering because of [insert negative news here]! Surely it will never rise again and will probably even plunge into the 20s! Democrats are guaranteed a massive landslide in 2020!"

"Oh no, Trump's approval is rising because people forgot about [insert negative news here]! It's OVER for the Democrats!"

Just wait for the Jussie Smollett bump!

We all have our own interpretations. I try to let the numbers tell the story of the day, and mine, I hope, reflects basic realities of the American political tradition. Thus Donald Trump will get so0mewhere between about 50 and 525 electoral votes because as an incumbent he will demonstrate what his core constituencies and regional appeals are, and on the other side every President has lost at least one State -- and no Republican is going to win the District of Columbia.

An incumbent President is going to win somewhere between 40% and 60% of the popular vote because we have never seen any incumbent President win anything outside those levels by much.

My focus is on how Donald Trump will do in 2020 because he is the dominant factor in the Presidential election. The opponent will matter little so long as that opponent can distinguish himself (herself?) from him effectively should he fail to solve big problems.

I see President Trump intensifying a tendency that existed before that a huge chunk of America wants reversed -- the shrinking and squeezing of the middle class. America's economic elites do not want a middle class of small businessmen, yeoman farmers, and well-paid professionals. The elites want the rest of Humanity to suffer for the gain, indulgence, and power of those elites.

I already see a pattern in which Trump does  well in states with no large white middle class (typically the Mountain and Deep South). You just saw  a poll of Kentucky, a state in which people are generally either rich or poor; there is little middle class to see anything wrong with the President's contempt for learning and middle-income lifestyles. I expect the same in the Mountain and Deep South, where he did extremely well in 2016.

Polling indicates how people perceive the political reality. It is that simple. If they are generally happy and hopeful they approve of the President. If they fear what happens next or are offended, then that will show up in poor polling.

I would like to believe that even if the President fails to achieve his agenda, people may be happy with that.

I follow the state polls because the states elect the President, and the People manifestly do not. Trump won the right votes even if he did little better than Dukakis in 1988 or McCain in 2008 -- and not as well as Kerry in 2004 or Romney in 2012. But the statewide polls look awful for Trump. He is behind badly in states in which he barely won, which is not how to win. Just look at the poll of Virginia. A state that he lost by single digits is one that he stands to lose by a huge double-digit margin. Do I have all the polls that I want? Hell, no! There are still states for which I would like to see polls -- Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. So far I see a huge number of states in which the President has disapproval at 50% or higher. He has 21 and a half months to undo those dreadful levels of disapproval.

Do I think that he will lose? Sure. I see him lacking the political skills with which to undo his early failures and to reverse his affronts to several critical constituencies. I make assumptions on how his personality will work upon American voters in 2020.

Yes, we are accustomed to Presidents winning re-election. Our youngest voters cannot remember anything else because the last President to be defeated in a re-election bid will have lost 28 years earlier when the 2020 election is around.

We now know what he stands for. He cannot backtrack. Winning people who see him as a failure or an affront at this stage is extremely difficult. I see a failure not getting away with it.

But that is my opinion and that reflects my premises. I realize that "Trump sucks -- he really sucks" in my mind matters little.      

How do you figure that Kentucky is a state with no middle class, where people are either rich or poor?  Looking at statistics, compared to states like California and New York it looks like a middle class paradise.

Kentucky - small wealthy/professional class - large middle class - largish underclass centered in the Appalachian portion.
NY/CA - large wealthy/professional class - small middle class - largish underclass in urban areas and some rural areas (central valley/southern tier) but they do get better social support.

Median Income:
KY - 47K, CA - 67K, NY - 62K

Average Owner Occupied Home Price:
KY - 130K, CA - 440K NY - 295K.

Median Income to Home Cost:
KY - 2.5:1, CA - 6.5:1, NY - 4.5:1

Homeownership rate:
KY - 67%, NY - 54.5%, CA - 54%.

Kentucky actually has a lower % of population without health insurance than either CA/NY and better high school graduation rates, but much lower college graduation rates.  Kentucky's main problem from a household income perspective is that it has a much higher % of under 65 population on disability and subsequently a substantially lower labor force participation rate.  Again centered on Appalachia.  Its still a far more classicaly middle class state than the large Dem strongholds, with much lower income inequality.  Thats part of the reason redistributionist policies are so much more popular in those two states.

Also large heavily Dem states are hemorrhaging native born middle class Americans (IL, NY, CA, MA, etc), most population growth is from professional class arrivals and especially international migration. 

[Absolution9]

How do you figure that Kentucky is a state with no middle class, where people are either rich or poor?

Everyone I know is either rich or poor.

How does that square with KY’s reasonable household income adjusted by cost of living, fairly high health insurance coverage rate, and high homeownership rate.  How are you defining poor?

[Absolution9]

How do you figure that Kentucky is a state with no middle class, where people are either rich or poor?

Everyone I know is either rich or poor.

How does that square with KY’s reasonable household income adjusted by cost of living, fairly high health insurance coverage rate, and high homeownership rate.  How are you defining poor?

The high health coverage rate results from when a Democrat was Governor.. Many of the homes that people own are hovels or trailers. There aren't many trailer parks within easy commuting distance of New York City, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, or San Diego. Home ownership rates can be very high in very poor Third-World countries and are very low in some very prosperous countries.

Kentuckians stand out as the heaviest smokers in America. Californians are second-lightest (although a distant second to Utah residents).

I’ll grant you that health stats are substantially better in NY and especially CA, but that’s mostly down to social/cultural differences not income.  KY’s cost of living adjusted household income isn’t any lower than in NY/CA especially for middle class people.  College educated Professionals do just fine in those two states of course.

I doubt that some huge portion of KY’s population lives in mobile home parks, but for the portion that do, I simply don’t see how that’s any more terrible than renting a small unit in a shabby heavily subsidized apartment complex or living in poorly maintained public housing.