Trump approval ratings thread 1.3

[pbrower2a]

Gallup 3/12

Approve - 39
Disapprove - 56 (+1)

There's no getting around this: 56% disapproval nationwide is a disaster for the President. This comes before the announcement of an effort to negotiate something (of course information with a diplomatic effort is murky until something solid emerges) with North Korea. Note well that China and South Korea concur on their view that the Korean peninsula should be free of nuclear weapons. Russia, Japan, and the United States would go along. It's all up to Emperor-in-all-but-name  Jong-Un I to do what is right.

Normally American Presidents are much more secretive about diplomatic efforts so that they have plausible denial in case something goes wrong. President Trump acts as if such a nicety has no relevance to him because he is Donald Trump. Let's all hope for the best even if it makes the President's approval ratings leave the danger zone.

 

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A surge model  is assumed in this district because Democrats show evidence of being more involved in the race for an open House seat in a special election. This district is not a microcosm of Pennsylvania, being more R than most districts... if it is tied, then President Trump is probably going to lose Pennsylvania decisively in 2020 unless things change greatly in a slightly less than  two and a half years to the benefit of the President.

I am surprised that I have not seen a poll of the Keystone State since September, as it has a Senate seat up for re-election.

Gravis has him 46-50 in Missouri.

http://orlando-politics.com/2018/03/12/gravis-marketing-2018-poll-the-state-of-missouri/

Much-maligned poster, but we don't get that many polls of Missouri.I make little of the category change, as the polling change is well within the margin or error. More troubling for President Trump in a re-election bid are that his disapproval in a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic nominee for President since 1996 seems to be reversing its R trend, and especially that a pollster has his disapproval in the "Show Me" state at the 50% level.

President Trump would have to pick up about every possible undecided voter and do better than 50-50 among new voters to win Missouri if this poll is not only credible but accurate. As in 2008, Missouri is roughly at the divide (for Democrats) between Obama 2008 and (Bill) Clinton in 1992 or 1996, which isn't much of a divide.

At this point I see the polarization of America on Presidential politics diminishing markedly. Figuring that Oklahoma will probably be the third-best state for the President in 2020, I can imagine the President winning most likely  four (possibly three or five depending on the Dakotas) with 60% or more of the popular vote in those states.

Senator Claire McCaskill is at roughly a 50-50 chance of holding onto her Senate seat unless the Republicans nominate a wacko to run against her, in which case she wins as in 2012.

Approval:

55% or higher dark blue
50-54% medium blue
less than 50% but above disapproval pale blue
even white
46% to 50% but below disapproval pale red
42% to 45% medium red
under 42% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

RI 30
NE-01 45
NE-02 38
NE-03 55

Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.

100-Disapproval

55% or higher dark blue
50% to 54% or higher but not tied medium blue
50% or higher but negative pale blue
ties white
45% or higher and positive pale red
40% to 44% medium red
under 40% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

 RI 30
NE-01 55
NE-02 46
NE-03 66


Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.


Nothing from before November. Polls from Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia are exit polls from 2017 elections.  

[pbrower2a]

So no polling available in CT? Wonder what's happening in my state.  

The usual pollsters of Connecticut have had other concerns. I am surprised that nobody has had a statewide poll of Connecticut recently. I am really surprised about Pennsylvania -- until I recognize that there is a special election today for a Congressional seat.

There is the Gallup statewide data for Connecticut, but that is over 2017 and average older than anything I have. I did see Trump well underwater in Pennsylvania -- in September, but that is too early for what I show now.

I know of some states that have fairly regular polling... but there are some hot Gubernatorial and Senate races, and with those (AZ, IN, MO, MT, NV, PA, WI) there will be polling.

I suspect that Connecticut has been close to max-out positions for Democratic nominees for President since 2008. Barack Obama won some states by the highest margins that any Democratic nominee won since the LBJ blowout win over Goldwater in 1964, and I can't imagine any Democratic nominee faring better in Connecticut than did Obama in 2008.

Trump's already underwater without any recession.
In case of recession, there could be a remake of the 1932 presidential election.

1932 or 1980, which are about the same. No modern President has shown so much deviation  from the expected norms of moral conduct for a President than has Donald Trump. This will not change. I already see several states that Kerry, Obama, and H. Clinton typically lost by huge margins approaching even splits in approval, especially in the South.  The recent poll of Nebraska suggests that this is more than President Trump being a poor cultural match for the South. He is a brash d@mnyankee; he is also an abrasive city-slicker. What some Trump voters of 2016 ignored about him beforer the election is now in their faces.  If Barack Obama didn't wear his religion on his sleeve but seemed to fit Christian ethics very well, Donald Trump wears his irreligion on his sleeve. This is a 'Santa Claus and Easter Bunny' Christian, which means that he is more informed by advertising and sentimentality than by any knowledge of the Bible.   He has the identity, but he is more of a preying man than a praying man. This man pretends to be a Christian yet follows the teachings of Ayn Rand instead.  

Sentimentality is not faith. Were I a clergyman and I got the opportunity I would try to get him to learn from the Sermon on the Mount, the essence of Jesus' teaching. Maybe the bit about the rich being damned today as then is no longer relevant; in Jesus' time, the rich were either aristocrats or thieves, corrupt people whose indulgence meant dehumanizing hardship for others. I don't see Bill Gates or Warren Buffett as particularly corrupt. This said, shysters and crony capitalists would surely face the ire of Jesus in any Second Coming. Donald Trump is a shyster and a crony capitalist, and for that people who held their noses while voting for him might not so readily vote for him in 2020.  

I am satisfied that all the investigation of any connections between the President and Russian political leadership can do little more harm to his image. It's hard to imagine anything new in the Mueller investigation convincing anyone not already convinced of the President's wrongdoing that he did anything wrong. House and Senate Republicans have circled the wagons well, and people still convinced in the President's bromides will not move. I am in no position to predict the content or consequences of any disclosures by some porn star who returning the pay-off (probably someone is paying her to return the money to the sender) for her silence. All that I can say is that $130K in hush money is far too much for covering up a one-night stand, so I am guessing that she had the potential to do far more damage to the President.  

[pbrower2a]

Big Sky Poll - Montana:

Excellent + Good: 43% (Good 20%)
Fair + Poor: 53% (Poor 41%)

Source

That’s not a great number

Fair to me is not a strong enough descriptor to be classified as "somewhat disapprove". I would go so far as to say "fair" could be combined with excellent and good for an overall approval rating.  

Indeed that is a horrible number.

Technically this is not approve-disapprove."Excellent" and "Good" are unambiguous statements of approval,   and  "poor" is unambiguous disapproval.  The word "fair" can be ambiguous in meaning. "Fair" performance on the violin by a seven-year-old kid might be praiseworthy, but you would not praise a "fair" performance of violin playing by an adult if you had recordings of Kreisler, Heifetz, Oistrakh, Grumiaux, Milstein, Stern, or Perlman against which to compare the performance due to suspect intonation, technique, or taste. "Fair play", "fair dealing", and "fair weather" are positive contexts.

"Fair" in most contexts is mediocrity, and if one wants food cheap and convenient, then typical fast food is mediocrity. It will quiet your hunger pangs.  Mediocrity in politics is far better than hideousness, let alone horror. If one treats "excellent" and "good" as general approval, then one gets 43% approval. "Poor" unambiguously suggests disapproval at 41%. I am tempted to split the "fair" category (12%) of responses 50-50 to give a 49-47 positive approval, which suggests a near-tie as I have for such states as Missouri and Nebraska. Neither is an ideal analogue for Montana, which has not gone for a Democratic nominee for President since 1992, and then did so in a three-way split of the popular vote. Sure, it was sort-of-close for Obama in 2008, but that matters little. I cannot think of any state that is a good analogue to Montana, including any of its neighbors. Montana is not at all  a farm state (I am guessing that about half the agricultural vote in North and South Dakota and a quarter of the agricultural vote in Idaho is in farming), and it does not depend upon as much as Wyoming upon energy extraction.  

I see few polls for Montana, but I expect to see more because of the Senate seat up for re-election in a state usually tough for Democrats to contest even as incumbents. My treatment of Donald Trump's esteem in Montana may be a bit charitable toward him; I tend to err on the side  of the prospect of President Trump getting re-elected.  This poll suggests that Montana will not be a sure win for Donald Trump in 2020.
 

I didn’t see this flawless, beautiful poll posted here:



Women: 29/70 (-41)
18-35 years: 27/73 (-46)
65+ years: 36/62 (-26)

Shaheen has a 57/34 approval in the same poll (69/28 among females, 66/26 among 18 to 34-year-olds and 63/35 among voters 65 or older), and Democrats lead the Generic Congressional Ballot in NH by 12 points.

Neither did I. I thought that the 26/67 spread that I have had too good to be true for someone who despises the President as I do 36-61 is more like it. Could it be that New Hampshire voters who as a whole were close to giving their state's four electoral votes to President Trump now are less supportive of him by about 10%? Republican nominees for President can win without New Hampshire, but I can;t imagine any Republican losing new Hampshire by 10% or more and getting elected.

Donald Trump may be reminding Granite State voters of the sort of New Yorker that they least like, the ugly stereotype of a blustering, domineering, liar with a bloated ego.  




Approval:

55% or higher dark blue
50-54% medium blue
less than 50% but above disapproval pale blue
even white
46% to 50% but below disapproval pale red
42% to 45% medium red
under 42% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 45
NE-02 38
NE-03 55

Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.

100-Disapproval

55% or higher dark blue
50% to 54% or higher but not tied medium blue
50% or higher but negative pale blue
ties white
45% or higher and positive pale red
40% to 44% medium red
under 40% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 55
NE-02 46
NE-03 66


Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.


Nothing from before November. Polls from Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia are exit polls from 2017 elections.  The Montana poll is an excellent-good-fair-poor poll which is semantically different from approve-disapprove, and I am splitting the 12% "fair" evenly  (6-6), and after an approval poll comes in I would never replace it with another EGFP poll.  

[pbrower2a]

Trumps numbers fluctuate between high 30s and low 40s. While there has been some recent improvements, I doubt they hold and this isn't just another fluctuation that un-does it self in the coming weeks. His numbers go up and down but never stray far from the baseline. That to me says people have made up their mind about him and outside of war or recession, his numbers will see no noticeable change beyond MoE for the remainder of the year.

The floor for the President in the popular vote in a bid for re-election is about 40% in a two-way race, as with Hoover in 1932. Hoover promised unprecedented prosperity and got the worst economic downturn that any living person can remember. Think of the year-and-a-half economic meltdown beginning in the autumn of 2007 (which was about as severe for a year and a half) , and double its length. But Hoover, disappointment as he was, still got 39.6% of the popular vote. His Party was fully behind him. Hoover got 52 electoral votes.

With Carter, we got stagflation and a mess in Iran. Carter may have been more unlucky than culpable, but that is my inner historian speaking. But even in a three-way race (John Anderson was one of the more successful third-party or independent nominees ever), Carter still got 41% of the popular vote and 49 electoral votes.

George H W Bush got only 37.45% of the popular vote in 1992 in part because he could not give a coherent explanation of what he would do in a second term. I am tempted to believe that Ross Perot (who got 19% of the popular vote that year) cut more into the vote for the elder Bush than into the Clinton vote...he could make some promises. The elder Bush was not a thoroughly-awful President as Donald Trump is.

...as a rule I do not predict polling results that follow news stories. Polling tells enough of a story, and fast enough. Many cannot understand how anyone could still believe in Donald Trump as a leader, but there are people likely to blame the news media, wayward intellectuals, or the old standbys "sin" and "the Devil". The fervent supporters of 2016 are still there. People stick with abusive spouses and exploitative cults, and President Trump has an abusive, exploitative cult. That will not change.

I see no events that would gut his support among those who can approve of him to this day. Some people still believe in him... go figure. His 'soft' support is gone. People who disagreed with him or otherwise found him too objectionable for his vote seem to think that he is exactly what thy feared. That was about 48% of the public in November 2016. About all that one could find with deeper polling are such assessments as "I wish I could emigrate for at least as long as he is President", "I wouldn't be surprised if we had a military coup", "I am no longer proud to be an American", "What a disgrace!", and... well, things that would draw the attention of the Secret Service.  All of those expressions would fit into "strongly disapprove", and there is no reason to distinguish them in polling. 

Day-to-day fluctuations do not change my assessment. I look for patterns, and I will be posting a revised map that shows how far the President is from getting re-elected. It has been a while since I showed that.

 

[pbrower2a]

Cook PVI ratings:

Color and intensity will indicate the variance from a tie (ties will be in white) with  in a 50-50 election with blue for an R lean and red for a D lean. Cook uses measures that fit an assumption of a 50-50 split of the vote and ignores cultural matches and favorite-son effects.  Numbers will be shown except in individual districts

int      var
2        1-4%
3        5-8%
5        9-12%
7        13-19%
9        20% or more

Cook PVI assumes a 50-50 Presidential election, reasonable since 2000 because except for the 2008 Presidential election all such exception, those five all were basically even for almost the entire electoral season. One can use polling to predict whether the next Presidential election will be a 50-50 proposition, and if not, how far the likely reality diverges from that assumption.

Based on 2012 and 2016 Cook PVI shows that the average Republican nominee will carry Alabama 59-41 and Florida 52-48; that the nominees will tie in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania; and that the Democratic nominee will win Michigan by 51-49 and New York 62-38. Of course, even in a 50-50 election, cultural affinities and the emphases will matter greatly. So could demographic trends. We will talk about that for Arizona and Texas.  

For DC (not measured) and Congressional districts that vote independently of states, I have common sense for Dee Cee and the congressional votes for those districts.

DC -- way out of reach for any Republican.

ME-01 D+8
ME-02 R+2

NE-01 R+11
NE-02 R+4
NE-03 R+27

(data from Wikipedia, map mine)

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

Here  is the Gallup data for 2017. Figuring that this is an average from early February to late December, I will have to assume an average date of July 15 or so for the polling data. This is now rather old data, and in some cases obsolete. For example, I see Trump support cratering in the Mountain and Deep South (seer below). the Mountain South and Deep South are going back to a populist phase (the South has typically oscillated between the  two) or whether The Donald is beginning to appear as a bad match for either part of the South.  This data (or later polling) is not  intended to show anything other than how support appears at some time or at an average of times. As a general rule, new polling supplants even better old  polling.

So here  is the Gallup polling with a number  of 100-DIS reflecting what I consider the ceiling for Donald Trump. This is lenient to the extent that I assume that he can pick up most undecided voters but recognizes that undoing disapproval at any stage requires miracles. By definition, miracles are unpredictable.

 Gallup data from all polls in 2017 (average assumed  in mid-July):

*Approval lower than disapproval in this state

for barely-legible numbers for DC and some states -- CT 37 DC 11 DE 42 HI 40 MD 35 RI 38

Lightest shades are for a raw total of votes that allows for a win with a margin of 5% or less; middle shades are for totals with allow for wins with 6 to 10% margins; deepest shades are for vote percentages that allow wins of 10% or more. Numbers are for the projected vote for Trump.

I assume that President Trump will reach (1) just short of winning if he is behind, or (2) the ceiling that 100-DIS suggests if he is ahead. Basically I expect him to pick up the undecided vote to a large extent if he is behind because as badly as he is behind in some states, the undecided are clearly right-of-center.  That is not charity; it is caution. People who have given up on him already are unlikely to give him a second chance. The mirror image would apply if the Democratic incumbent were having trouble with outrageous behavior.  

.................  

This is polling from October or later, and it does not include the Gallup data.

 I use 100-DIS as a reasonable ceiling for the Trump vote in 2020. Thus:




Lightest shades are for a raw total of votes that allows for a win with a margin of 5% or less; middle shades are for totals with allow for wins with 6 to 10% margins; deepest shades are for vote percentages that allow wins of 10% or more. Numbers are for the projected vote for Trump.

I use a 'favorability' rating for Illinois because such is all that is available and at this stage, favorability and approval are close when there is no active campaign.

Note -- if Trump is underwater in the polling, then the results come out in pink.  

..........



100-Disapproval

55% or higher dark blue
50% to 54% or higher but not tied medium blue
50% or higher but negative pale blue
ties white
45% or higher and positive pale red
40% to 44% medium red
under 40% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 55
NE-02 46
NE-03 66


Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.

This is likely the last that you will see of my  analysis of polling based on deviation from Cook PVI. I think we can be assured that President Trump is doing worse, in general in  polling, than something consistent with a 50-50 split of the popular vote.

Now, for the variance between  100-DIS from recent polling and Cook PVI.  

Variation from PVI (polls from November 2017 and later):

Orange implies that President Trump projects to do better than Cook PVI based on 100-DIS. In Minnesota I have a 49-47 poll with which to work, and people in that thread tell me that the pollster who got those results is suspect. So the President is doing 2% better in California in accordance with 100-DIS than Cook PVI suggests. Not significant, obviously, because that is the difference between losing the Golden State 60-40 instead of 62-38.

This data is from mid-March.

Minnesota is the only significant anomaly (that is from the pattern of Trump having less support than is necessary for getting a 50% of the binary vote for President). California is going to go against him big even if it is less hostile to him than it was in 2016. Other states on the whole suggest that the President will fare far worse than average, and his biggest losses of support are in states that were either on or near the margin in 2016 or that he won big in 2016.  

[pbrower2a]

Well, after Comey firing, people were saying Trump is going to dive into the low 30s. He actually regained ground and is in the low 40s. Not too much adrift of Obama, who was regarded as good president in liberal media.

It's a question at this time of how badly the president will lose in 2020. Should his approval rating get into the low 30s he will probably end up with about 40% of the popular vote. In the high 30s -- about 45%.

I see President Trump doing far worse than Obama at analogous times from inauguration to now, and even if I am in no position in which to extrapolate what follows, I notice that Barack Obama barely touched the low 40s in approval. With a spirited and effective campaign, President Obama was able to parlay 45% or so approval into about 51% of the popular vote in 2016.

Below the low 20s? One rarely sees elected officials running for re-election with such.

I look at the qualitative assessments, and of course well-concealed racial attitudes may have kept President Obama from having higher approval ratings than he otherwise had. But the racist memes and religious slanders of some Tea Party members are nothing in contrast to the self-inflicted wounds that the current President endures. To be sure, President Obama didn't make the strange personnel changes that Trump did...  he seemed to prefer to not mess with the intelligence services and federal law enforcement. For all his alleged ultra-liberal tendencies, Obama was very conservative in his style of administering the government.

If you think that President Trump can get re-elected, then your assessment depends upon miracles or successful cheats. I see no reason to predict the success of either.

[pbrower2a]

Five states, three of them altogether new to this map (with 37 electoral votes), from PPP (if for a liberal advocacy group; PPP errs on the side of Republicans in the name of caution:

Arizona, 45-50

http://www.protectourcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PPP-Poll-AZ-ACA-Memo-and-Results-March-21.pdf

Nevada, 45-51

https://www.protectourcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PPP-Poll-NV-ACA-Memo-and-Results-March-21.pdf

Pennsylvania, 42-53

http://www.protectourcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PPP-Poll-PA-ACA-Memo-and-Results-March-21.pdf

Tennessee, 54-42

http://www.protectourcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PPP-Poll-TN-ACA-Memo-and-Results-March-21-1.pdf

Wisconsin, 41-51

http://www.protectourcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PPP-Poll-WI-ACA-Memo-and-Results-March-21.pdf

These polls were automated phone polls.

Senate results:

Dem margins in Senate battlegrounds, per @ppppolls
#PAsen Casey (D) 54% (+18) Barletta (R)  36%
#WIsen Baldwin (D) 51 (+12) Vukmir (R) 39
#TNsen Bredesen (D) 46 (+5) Blackburn (R) 41
#NVsen Rosen (D) 44 (+5) Heller (R) 39
#AZsen Sinema (D) 46 (+5) McSally (R) 41%



Approval:

55% or higher dark blue
50-54% medium blue
less than 50% but above disapproval pale blue
even white
46% to 50% but below disapproval pale red
42% to 45% medium red
under 42% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 45
NE-02 38
NE-03 55

Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.

100-Disapproval

55% or higher dark blue
50% to 54% or higher but not tied medium blue
50% or higher but negative pale blue
ties white
45% or higher and positive pale red
40% to 44% medium red
under 40% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 55
NE-02 46
NE-03 66


Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.


Nothing from before November. Polls from Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia are exit polls from 2017 elections.  The Montana poll is an excellent-good-fair-poor poll which is semantically different from approve-disapprove, and I am splitting the 12% "fair" evenly  (6-6), and after an approval poll comes in I would never replace it with another EGFP poll.  

[pbrower2a]

My current prediction:

https://www.270towin.com/maps/NlJBL

[pbrower2a]

My current prediction:

https://www.270towin.com/maps/NlJBL

Just curious, but how close do you think the race in Texas might be?  Or at least, as things stand right now.

With the qualification that Democrats will not spend big money  on the expensive Texas media markets because Texas straddles the 400-EV zone, Texas looks to be very close, likely within the margin of error. Two demographic trends hurt Republicans in Texas: first, the rapidly-growing Hispanic electorate (most notably Mexican-Americans, but I would not be surprised to find lots of Puerto Ricans ending up in Texas); and second, the large, educated white vote. Much  of this  is coming from places in which educated white people vote D -- but consider that such states as Arizona, Georgia, and Texas have been hold-outs for this demographic.

I look at the Alabama vote in the Moore-Jones race, and Moore got clobbered among those voters in Alabama. In case you wonder whether it was simply about Roy Moore discrediting himself, then consider that the exit polls gave a 48-48 split in approval ratings for Donald Trump.

Texas used to have a reputation for loud-mouth, uncouth boors below average in formal education. That image is now obsolete.

Still, it is Texas. But the state is beginning to look much like Virginia in the middle of the Double-Zero decade except for having far more Hispanics.       

[pbrower2a]

Siena College, New York:

Trump performance rating 29-69.

https://www.siena.edu/news-events/article/by-2-to-1-new-yorkers-support-safe-act-banning-assault-weapon-sales-nationa

Ohio: SurveyUSA. Trump approval 41-51. Ugh!

Good news for Republicans: DeWine can succeed Kasich (popular but term-limited at 54-31) as Governor. But forget trying to knock off Senator Sherrod Brown, whose approval rating is at 55-27, and he beats any imaginable R challenger handily. Support for Rob Portman, an incumbent not up for re-election, is tepid at 43-33... positive, but well short of the near-50 zone of really-successful pols.

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=b21c66fb-ba89-4b8c-9171-30457f6997d2  



Approval:

55% or higher dark blue
50-54% medium blue
less than 50% but above disapproval pale blue
even white
46% to 50% but below disapproval pale red
42% to 45% medium red
under 42% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 45
NE-02 38
NE-03 55

Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.

100-Disapproval

55% or higher dark blue
50% to 54% or higher but not tied medium blue
50% or higher but negative pale blue
ties white
45% or higher and positive pale red
40% to 44% medium red
under 40% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 55
NE-02 46
NE-03 66


Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.


Nothing from before November. Polls from Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia are exit polls from 2017 elections.  The Montana poll is an excellent-good-fair-poor poll which is semantically different from approve-disapprove, and I am splitting the 12% "fair" evenly  (6-6), and after an approval poll comes in I would never replace it with another EGFP poll.  

[pbrower2a]

I am really surprised why Trump is only at 48% approval in AL. Some kind of Doug Jones effect?

That is an exit poll from the special election for the US Senate. Not only did Roy Moore do unusually badly for a Republican in a statewide race in Alabama -- the electorate that elected Doug Jones was about evenly split on approval and disapproval of the President.  That is an aging poll, but it portends trouble for Republicans in Alabama. To be sure, many Republicans may have stayed home because they could not choose easily between voting for a pervert (if you are a 30-something man and you seek out girls in their teens you are a pervert) and a Democrat. I have not seen later polls, and the next one could show Trump up 54-43 in approval or something similar.

This said, (1) Obama will not be an issue in 2018; (2) a pattern that was slower to take root in southern states in which well-educated white people started to turn against the Republican Party in other parts of the country has begun to become relevant (just look at polls of Georgia and Texas) inside the South to the detriment of Republicans; (3) Donald Trump may be offending many conservative sensibilities on Big Government and foreign policy. On the other side, there's no guarantee that Roy Moore will run for anything or, should he run, he will be defeated in a primary.

Note also that Republicans -- and Southern Republicans are among the most reactionary Republicans -- have entrenched power to the extent that they have political machines. At some point political machines must deliver the goods... and goodies... or they collapse. Republicans have had plenty of opportunity to improve public health, highways, and education, and if they get caught simply enriching their cronies, then they could be on the brink of defeat.

They might lose State Houses before they lose the Senate or yield the electoral votes of their states to the Democrats. But just think of how the Democrats lost West Virginia  as an illustration of how things can go wrong. Democrats used to have a lock on West Virginia politics when the powerful United Mine Workers (UMW) could deliver the votes of coal miners and their families  for Democrats on labor issues while Democratic officials failed to invest in education and highways. But as coal seams got exhausted and coal miners lost their jobs, the mine owners became more powerful with respect to the political system. West Virginia has become one of the poorest states in the Union by any standard; its roads are awful, its schools (who needed much formal education when there was plenty of work in the mines?) prepare youth for nothing, and public health is awful. Whether Republicans can turn the state around is much in question. A state that went for Democratic nominees unless the Democrats nominated a cultural offender as George McGovern or a worn-out political hack like Mondale surprised many in 2000 by going for Dubya and shocked people by going so resolutely against Obama twice. West Virginia is the only state to have voted since 1964 against a Republican winner of more than 350 electoral votes (GHWB in 1988)  that also voted against a Democrat winning 350 or more electoral votes (Obama in 2008). Voting for a big loser in the Electoral College is evidence of partisan identity.

So what have Republicans done for some ot the states that most fervently voted against Democratic nominees for President and have cast off all Democratic Senators?  Eventually the politicians must deliver the goodies, even if through trickle-down economics.

[pbrower2a]

PPP - National:

39% Approve (-5)
54% Diasppaprove (+5)

Source

A 5% shift in approval or disapproval is just barely outside the margin of error -- but it is outside the margin of error. This is a significant change in public attitudes.

[pbrower2a]

Dude was outsmarted a porn star. Lawd Jesus halp us

Such would have never happened with or to Obama. Of course, had President Obama had any involvement with a prostitute or porn star, such would have been dragged through the political mud.

People do stupid things when thei9r sex drives overpower their morals, judgment, and intellect.

[pbrower2a]

New York City -  Quinnipiac:

19% Approve
76% Disapprove

Bronx: 16-82
Brooklyn: 24-70
Manhattan: 12-87
Queens: 18-75
Staten Island: 34-62!!!

Source

Holy moly

Didn't Trump win there?

Yes -- he won Richmond County (Staten Island) roughly 56-41.

[pbrower2a]

Trump approval at 30% in PA.

Link: https://www.fandm.edu/uploads/files/708725106986767486-f-m-poll-release-march-2018.pdf

This is yet another poll that does Fair / Poor. "Fair" is not necessarily negative.

His favorables are 36-60

I have used such a poll for Montana, for which I have no other recent data, and for that state I split the "fair" category in half.   But with a recent poll in Pennsylvania I need no excellent-good-fair-poor poll. But if only 30% of polled Keystone State residents can say that the President is doing a good or excellent job, then this is really bad. If Donald Trump is the Reactionary  nominee for President, then I expect Pennsylvania to be a quick call for just about any Democrat.

The North Carolina (High Point) poll is of 'adults', which is now an inadequate screen. On some states I am not a beggar, so I can make some choices on my map.

[pbrower2a]

PPP finds Trump at 46/47 in South Carolina CD 1, which he won 54-40 (and Romney won 58-40).

https://www.postandcourier.com/cunningham-st-district-poll/pdf_60d4f8e6-3431-11e8-8249-6361aacaeb48.html

Bad signs for him abound.

The last poll that I saw of President Trump in South Carolina at large had him at 44-50.

I am beginning to see something in common between Presidents Carter and Trump: both were very naive about the Soviet Union or Russia at the time, such proved disastrous for Carter, and much the same seems likely for President Trump.

[pbrower2a]

Rasmussen 4/4

Approve - 51 (+2)
Disapprove - 48 (-2)

I think there's an actual argument for taking Rasmussen out of the aggregators. They're aggressively tweeting at Trump, trying to get him to retweet their polls. That seems very fishy.

Everybody else has Trump approval in the high 30s or the low 40s now, based upon the screens of the polls.  Statewide polls are generally consistent with Trump approval  around 40% nationwide.  

[pbrower2a]

Latest Rasmussen Survey:
Approval: 51%
Disapproval: 48%
These are very solid numbers for Trump, from a pollster that accurately polled the 2016 election (most other pollsters can’t say that). This confirms my view that Trump is a solid favorite for Reelection, and Republicans are still favorites to hold the House and gain 4-7 Senate seats in the 2018 Midterms.

You are three days late for April Fool's  Day!

[pbrower2a]

Apples to apples with Morning Consult. Same time, all states, same screen. 100-DIS, which with other pollsters serves as as good an estimate of the ceiling for the vote for an incumbent seeking re-election:    

deep blue, 60% or more
navy, 55-59%
blue, 50-54% or more if ahead
white, 50% or more if behind* or tied and 47% or more
pink and behind, 47-49%
red,  41-46%
maroon, 40% or lower
deep red -- Dee Cee

These polls, with few exceptions (Minnesota) are more favorable to President Trump than to the statewide polls that I have compiled (and intend to keep working with. I will use the poll for Minnesota on my statewide map because the last poll came as President Trump was making promises of infrastructure spending that, although then resonating with Minnesota's ore miners, never materialized and probably won't be presented anew until after the 2018 midterm election.

It is easy to see that the President has unusually weak support in such states as Idaho, Kansas, Montana, and Utah. In these statewide polls, he seems to have rebounded significantly in the South. If there are arguments that Morning Consult undercounts minorities, then I have a good cause to not show these polls in the South. But I might not have such a problem for Kansas or Minnesota.


...Later polls might show effects of retaliatory tariffs by China on some American farm products, especially pork, soybeans and whiskey.  Of the ten biggest soybean-producing states, eight went for Trump. The rural vote usually goes heavily R in most elections, but Trump could blow that. Three of the states involved are Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin.   President Trump knows about as much about farming as he does about military service, and I can imagine him getting walloped in farm states in 2020.

Note Indiana. Indiana goes R in just about every Presidential election... but when it goes by less than 10%, the Democrat invariably wins nationwide. Indiana has some swing electorates that might not be as important in Indiana as in such states as Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, but when the Republican Party catches a cold in Indiana it gets double pneumonia in some bigger or more significant states.  Indiana is a big producer of soybeans and price-sensitive (on metals) machinery. Again, this is before the effects of tariffs.

[pbrower2a]

 

http://mtsupoll.org/

Trump approval at 50-41 in Tennessee.

I find that Morning Consult may be overstating the strength of the GOP in the South. I will not use its polls to replace polls that I have of Southern states. I will replace the obsolete poll of Minnesota (where Trump did well in polling while he talked about an infrastructure program that Congress rejected; ore miners in Minnesota had been excited about the prospect of more activity to get the iron ore necessary for steel in such projects, but once that fell through, I expect Minnesota to trend to its usual norm. That's 40-57. I am also replacing the "excellent-good-fair-poor" poll in Montana with the 50-46 that I see on Morning Consult.

Otherwise I am filling in gaps.



Approval:

55% or higher dark blue
50-54% medium blue
less than 50% but above disapproval pale blue
even white
46% to 50% but below disapproval pale red
42% to 45% medium red
under 42% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

CT 39
DC 17
DE 39
HI 33
NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 45
NE-02 38
NE-03 55
NH 36
RI 30
VT 32

Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.

100-Disapproval

55% or higher dark blue
50% to 54% or higher but not tied medium blue
50% or higher but negative pale blue
ties white
45% or higher and negative pale red
40% to 44% medium red
under 40% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

CT 41
DC 20
DE 43
HI 36
NH 39
NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 55
NE-02 46
NE-03 66
RI 30
VT 36


Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.


Nothing from before November 2017. Polls from Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia are exit polls from 2017 elections.  The Montana poll is an excellent-good-fair-poor poll which is semantically different from approve-disapprove, and I am splitting the 12% "fair" evenly  (6-6), and after an approval poll comes in I would never replace it with another EGFP poll.

[pbrower2a]

  

http://mtsupoll.org/

Trump approval at 50-41 in Tennessee.

I find that Morning Consult may be overstating the strength of the GOP in the South. I will not use its polls to replace polls that I have of Southern states. I will replace the obsolete poll of Minnesota (where Trump did well in polling while he talked about an infrastructure program that Congress rejected; ore miners in Minnesota had been excited about the prospect of more activity to get the iron ore necessary for steel in such projects, but once that fell through, I expect Minnesota to trend to its usual norm. That's 40-57. I am also replacing the "excellent-good-fair-poor" poll in Montana with the 50-46 that I see on Morning Consult.

Otherwise I am filling in gaps.

https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump/



Approval:

55% or higher dark blue
50-54% medium blue
less than 50% but above disapproval pale blue
even white
46% to 50% but below disapproval pale red
42% to 45% medium red
under 42% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

CT 39
DC 17
DE 39
HI 33
NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 45
NE-02 38
NE-03 55
NH 36
RI 30
VT 32

Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.

100-Disapproval

55% or higher dark blue
50% to 54% or higher but not tied medium blue
50% or higher but negative pale blue
ties white
45% or higher and negative pale red
40% to 44% medium red
under 40% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

CT 41
DC 20
DE 43
HI 36
NH 39
NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 55
NE-02 46
NE-03 66
RI 30
VT 36


Nebraska districts are shown as 1, 2, and 3 from left to right on the map, even if they are geographically 3, 1, and 2 from west to east.


Nothing from before November 2017. Polls from Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia are exit polls from 2017 elections.  The Montana poll is an excellent-good-fair-poor poll which is semantically different from approve-disapprove, and I am splitting the 12% "fair" evenly  (6-6), and after an approval poll comes in I would never replace it with another EGFP poll.

[pbrower2a]

Why would Wyoming be 23 points more Trump-friendly than Idaho?

More farming and dairying, and less ranching in Idaho than in Wyoming? Note also that Idaho is the second-most Mormon of states, and Donald Trump is the worst cultural match for a major Republican for Mormon family values ever. His approval in Utah, take notice, is only at 48% on my map (and 45% on the Morning Consult poll). If someone did a poll of Utah pitting Obama against Trump, I would expect Obama to win  even if Obama lost Utah in two landslides. Obama is closer to fitting Mormon values than is Trump. 

Ranchers are a rather right-wing bunch as they are about the purest individualists in economics in America. Farmers want their subsidies... and dairying is practically an industrial operation in which dairy workers are treated much like industrial workers in an assembly-line setting. Dairy workers are a genuine proletariat. In contrast, ranch hands need to have their employers supply basic needs due to their isolation and recognize their employers as benefactors for housing and utilities. The "ranch" style house is a middle-class practice well outside of ranching country, even if middle-class adults have largely outgrown any 'cowboy' shtick.

[pbrower2a]

Harvard Institute of Politics Spring 2018 youth poll, March 8-25, 2631 adults age 18-29 only

Approve 25
Disapprove 72

(No change from their Fall 2017 poll.)  Other items:

Generic Congressional ballot: 69 D, 28 R (D+41) -- change from 65/33

37% say they will definitely be voting, compared to 23% in 2014 and 31% in 2010.  This includes 51% of young Democrats and 36% of young Republicans.  In 2014, it was 28% of Ds and 31% of Rs; in 2010, it was 35% of Ds and 41% of Rs.

Additional details at http://iop.harvard.edu/spring-2018-poll.

The young adults of our time must see little to gain from right-wing economics. Moist either have crappy jobs or huge student loan debt, and quite possibly both. The Millennial Generation of Howe and Strauss (born mostly in the latter two decades of the twentieth century) are much more likely to be renters than home-owners. Renters face a capitalist that they rarely find the hero for innovation: a landlord. That's before I mention the licit loan-sharks such as payday lenders and high-interest used-car dealerships.

A general rule of political history is that creditors tend toward the Right, and debtors toward the Left. Large-scale creditors want their debtors to pay back in scarce funds -- the proverbial pound of flesh -- and have an interest in deflationary economics. Debtors prefer inflation and an over-heated economy to ease the payment of their debts. The optimum for moderate conservatism is small-scale creditors who own savings, insurance policies, or perhaps a small-scale mutual fund; such people want an economy vibrant enough to prevent some meltdown that will cause small creditors to have to dip into savings or sell off assets in a hard time. 

Add to this, the Millennial Generation is the best-educated in American history, which makes it much less amenable to the far-reaching anti-intellectualism of Donald Trump that goes beyond criticism of wayward  professors and creative people to the typical K-12 teacher. This generation largely rejects right-wing religion, a key constituency of Movement Conservatism that sprouted under Reagan and rots under Trump.

No President has so shaped American economic life to fit a mirror-image of Marxism, an ideology that praises exploitation, economic inequality, mass insecurity, elite indulgence, and the ravaging of resources. Young adults who have read Orwell after the demise of Communism see a slogan such as "Make America Great Again" for the result more than for the promise. Trump's language is just another form of Newspeak, and the President acts more like the sort of dictator who usually dominates the political life of some distant country (except perhaps Cuba or Haiti). Young adults have the most to lose should the Trump Presidency become the norm in American politics. 

[pbrower2a]

To be blunt, I get tired of watching his approval ratings go up slightly in one direction or the other and the massive amount of hot takes that follow.

We need always remember these three words to describe any move less than 4%:

margin of error

[pbrower2a]

Excellent! Polls are statistical measures, and as such they measure a reality about which we draw our own conclusions. They reflect the people of America  even more than they reflect the desirability of Donald Trump as President. But they are statistics and they fit rigid models that few of us can fraw all the right conclusions and only the right conclusions.
 

I think Democrats/Liberals are in a bubble about Trump. It seems like that he's getting more unpopular every day with more scandals and more chips falling.

He's still unpopular. I don't know how many people here routinely blow off these polls as fake or whatever, which would be that bubble syndrome you're speaking of. I certainly don't really doubt these. I do have questions of why these people seem to have less issues with him, but I'm not sure if there are answers.

I think - just my personal suspicion, I do not have the data I would need to back this up - it's a combination of two (well, really three) things:

A) He hasn't made an epic mistake with perceived consequences for the entire public, and nothing has exploded with him in charge.

Oh, yes, he's done a lot of exceedingly stupid stuff, and been dogged by scandals. (More on that below.) But he's barely done anything on the national or international scale. Sure, posters here, and anyone who's politically invested and active, can point to this or that horrible thing his administration has done. But he hasn't started any (new) wars (yet), the economy hasn't tanked (yet), his trade war hasn't left the runway (yet), he flubbed Maria but hardly anyone cares about Puerto Rico (even if they should), and his biggest foreign crisis with North Korea is working out okay for now.

To go back to an analogy I like - yeah, the bus driver is a scary crazy drunk man with a filthy mouth, but he hasn't crashed it (yet).

Even with the huge difference between Obama and Trump, Obama is closer to the mainstream of the historical experience of America than is Donald Trump. Obama is closer to Ronald Reagan than is Donald Trump.

Liberals need to recognize what is right with America, and that is those aspects of American life that Donald Trump cannot change. Our economy is productive enough that we are not on the margin of famine. We have a strong agricultural productivity as a foundation of all other economic activity. Yes, more money nay be flowing through real estate, finance, manufacturing, and services, but knock out agriculture and the rest crashes. If I had to choose between the oil of Saudi Arabia and American agriculture, I would prefer to have American agriculture. Americans still have faith in consumerism, and people who have given up on it are rare enough to be seen as eccentric or irrelevant. We still have a collective Wanderlust that most of us can satisfy only with an automobile.  We still have a welfare system that keeps the disabled and helpless from  starvation. A record number and percentage of Americans have college degrees -- sure, many of those are from second-rate or third-rate colleges, but even those degrees have some value. Trump cannot change that.

And then we have our institutions. The military and law enforcement, conservative as they are, are not going to enforce the whim of the day of this President. The independent judiciary keeps the legal process from becoming a means of lynching those who disagree with the President.  People with agendas different from his believe rightly that they can wait him out. People are still able to protest his cruel, corrupt, and even insane proposals. Trump may be a fascist pig (sorry for insulting the source of the pork loin that I enjoyed last night!), but much of what he has said has violated the conscience and consciousness of millions of Americans. People who thought this President a sick joke in November 2016 mostly still do (and I believe that they have firm justification), and they will be taking out their contempt for this President upon Republicans who cannot adequately distance themselves from him.

International reality? The world can rely upon countries other than America for its overall stability. If America is suspect as a member of the Free World and can no longer be trusted as the world's policeman, then there are other candidates. The countries that were the three main Axis Powers in World War II are more democratic than we are. So was our main democratic ally Britain. Now there is India, a Great Power in its own right. Those countries can wait out President Trump because two hundred years of political heritage matter more than the caprice of one President. The next American President, if not a caretaker with zany ideas like Mike Pence who is also unelectable as President, will be more like Barack Obama even if a white liberal female -- or a conservative.       

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After presiding over the worst economic meltdown in American history and meeting it mostly ineffectually, Herbert Hoover still got 39.65% of the popular vote and got 59 electoral votes in a troubled big for re-election. After having failed to do anything to mitigate stagflation and having some incredible bad luck in the hostage crisis in Iran, Jimmy Carter got 41% of the popular vote and 49 electoral votes. The elder Bush got 37.45% of the popular vote and 168 electoral votes after having no coherent idea of what to do in a Second Act. To be sure, neither of those Presidents have been so corrupt and cruel as this one, I cannot imagine Trump doing worse in the popular vote than the elder Bush (although that would requite a Third Party nominee on the Right or center-Right who takes more votes from the incumbent than from the challenger as did  Ross Perot) and in the electoral college than Hoover or Carter. Millions still love the political rogue who is now President.

The polls, nationwide or statewide, show that this President is a disappointment to those who held their noses and voted for him. I expect to know more -- don't we all? -- after the November 2018 midterm elections.   

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It may be getting normal for Trump, but it still offends millions of Americans, including many who voted for him. People often get away with driving drunk or having a temporary blackout as they doze off. I wouldn't want to be a passenger in a car under the control of someone who 'only had a cuppl'a beerzh, osshiffer' or continues to drive into the late afternoon after not having had a good night's sleep. This President has offended too many sensibilities to get re-elected under normal circumstances.