Trump's approval vs his reelection numbers

[GeorgiaModerate]

There have been quite a few polls where Trump's job approval numbers have run several points ahead of his result in potential general election matchups.  This has been somewhat puzzling, but I talked to an old friend recently who led me to see how this can happen.  Background: a white male in his 60's, highly educated, professional occupation, high income, quite wealthy, lifelong conservative.  He didn't vote for Trump in 2016 (he wrote someone in) because he expected Trump to be a complete disaster; however, he admitted that he's been pleasantly surprised by Trump's results so far.  He's happy about the tax cut, ecstatic about the judges Trump's appointed (especially Gorsuch), and pleased with several other things, although there are some pieces of Trump's policy he doesn't like, such as the trade war.

The wording of the approval question in most polls is something like "Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president?"  (That's from the latest Fox poll.)  I have no doubt that my friend would answer that he does approve of the job Trump has done.  But he still thinks Trump is dangerously unstable and an embarrassment to the country, and under no circumstances will he vote to reelect him.  He'll probably vote third-party again, although he said he "might consider" Biden if he's the Democratic nominee.

Assuming there are other people who feel this way -- separating what Trump's done so far from how they view him as a person -- it would go a long way toward explaining the discrepancy between Trump's approval and reelection numbers.