Trump approval ratings thread 1.5

[pbrower2a]

North Carolina, PPP. This time, not done on behalf of a special-interest group:

North Carolina Closely Divided On Trump


 Raleigh, N.C. – PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds that voters in the state are closely divided about the 2020 Presidential election. Donald Trump has a 46% approval rating, with 49% of voters disapproving of him. Trump did 6 points better in North Carolina than he did nationally in the 2016 Presidential election, so it's not surprising that his -3 net approval rating in the state is better than the -10 or so net approval he has nationally right now.

  In hypothetical match ups with the 5 leading Democratic candidates for President, Trump ranges from trailing by 3 points to leading by 3 points. Trump gets 46 or 47% regardless of the Democrat he's tested against, while the level of support for the Democrats fluctuates based on their name recognition. The two Democrats with leads over Trump are the best known- Joe Biden is up 49-46 on him and Bernie Sanders is up 48-47. Trump narrowly leads the lesser known Democrats- it's a 47-46 edge over Kamala Harris, a 48-46 one over Elizabeth Warren, and a 47-44 one over Pete Buttigieg. On average Trump leads the Democrats by 0.2%.

North Carolina was the second closest state in the country for President in both 2008 and 2012 and at least at this early stage seems like it could be headed for a similarly close outcome in this election cycle.  

https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PPP_Release_NC_62019.pdf

If you are Donald Trump you do not want North Carolina to be the second-closest state in the Presidential election... either way.

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

Here is a real shocker. Louisiana rarely gets polled on Presidential races, and it went 58%-34% for Donald Trump in 2016.

Only 47% of voters polled approved of Trump’s performance while 46% disapproved.

Nationally, Trump averages a 45% approval rating.

Trump support had weakened in the last poll of Louisiana. Economic distress is real in Louisiana:

One possible reason: non-farm employment from January 2016, when Edwards took office, to April this year declined slightly from 1,986,800 to 1,983,400.  

The Democratic incumbent Governor looks reasonably safe.

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_d9ba10d4-93a8-11e9-881b-33b6f24306e1.html

Trump, net approval positive -- raw approval

55% and higher
50-54%
under 50%

tie (white)

Trump, net negative approval -- raw approval

43-49% with disapproval under 51% if approval 45% or higher
40-42%, or under 45% if disapproval is over 51%
under 40%

[pbrower2a]

I wonder how the Iran thing is going to go. Are people thinking it was some sort of shrewd brinksmanship or just another childish game?

Are people thinking that Trump is actually "improving" or is this still just statistical noise? If Trump's standing is "improving", who is giving him credit for improving? Do people really just think they have more money now?

It's still within the range of statistical noise. Trump eases off a folly and he gets a slight increase in approval. That's about right. Then he threatens to do something stupid, and down go his polling numbers. We see that often. It is his character.   

[pbrower2a]

I wonder how the Iran thing is going to go. Are people thinking it was some sort of shrewd brinksmanship or just another childish game?

Are people thinking that Trump is actually "improving" or is this still just statistical noise? If Trump's standing is "improving", who is giving him credit for improving? Do people really just think they have more money now?

He blusters and then backs off. He loses a couple percent in approval and then gets it back. For some he alternates between horrible and tolerable based on that alone. Such things become the focus.

If it is brinkmanship it has risks that can turn a usually-shaky situation catastrophic.  



It's still within the range of statistical noise. Trump eases off a folly and he gets a slight increase in approval. That's about right. Then he threatens to do something stupid, and down go his polling numbers. We see that often. It is his character.  

This Iran thing doesn't count or are people buying it?

He loses a couple points of approval, backs off, and gets them back, or so seems the pattern. It may be disgusting, and even ineffective... but there are people in that roller-coaster.

[pbrower2a]

Maine, Gravis.

45-51. Every Democrat tested beats Trump.


http://orlando-politics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Maine-Jun-26-2019.pdf

(It's about time for a Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin, and a Selzer poll of Iowa, don't you think?)

Trump, net approval positive -- raw approval

55% and higher
50-54%
under 50%

tie (white)

Trump, net negative approval -- raw approval

43-49% with disapproval under 51% if approval 45% or higher
40-42%, or under 45% if disapproval is over 51%
under 40%

[pbrower2a]

AP/NORC:



Note the unconventional positioning of disapproval to the left and approval to the right.

Enough said. Want more? Here is the article.

https://apnews.com/a5523454096a4c2b9e8406251ee8c2a2

[pbrower2a]

I think OH and maybe FL may tilt Democratic this time

I wish. That poll about the economy definitely weakens Trump's biggest asset as a narrative, but that's still way too optimistic.

AP has always been a good counter to Rassy. It's just too bad that Rassy is everyday.

I can but that he probably right between 39 and 47% approval rating. Probably slightly closer to 42 than 43, though. 538 is the prognosticator I turn to right now. Even when they are wrong, they are the least wrong.

At this rate, he probably loses the popular vote between 2 (to do better than this, he would have to have the Democrats to run the worse campaign in applicable history) and 8 points (Democrats actually run a really good campaign).

I have been using approval and disapproval as proxies for The Donald's chance of re-election since January 2017 as a prediction of how the vote would go. Of course this is less significant than "vote for/vote against". A year from now, approval and disapproval will be afterthoughts because there will be a likely Democratic nominee and we will see whether Trump can do better in campaigns when he can no longer get away with speaking only to fanatical supporters.  

At first I had only favorability (so people expect the best of him?); then it became approval. In fact I preferred my own convoluted metric as 100-DIS, figuring that Trump will not win over those who disapprove of him but would have some chance of winning over the undecided. Thus if I saw his numbers as

47 approve, 49 disapprove

in Ohio in accordance with a respectable poll, then Trump would win the undecided and end up winning Ohio 51-49. Obviously there is some possibility for events to shape things to the benefit of a pol, and there is the pesky margin of error in even the best polling. (OK, Obama was at 45-51 in one respectable poll in Ohio while Osama bin Laden was still alive. Obama ended up winning Ohio in 2012, but even that was within the margin of error. Besides, it is easier to win if one has a tangible achievement behind one, especially if that tangible achievement is the dead body of the most reviled terrorist in world history.

Trump is riding what looks like a strong economy, but that cannot solve all his problems. He is still an arrogant, corrupt, unforgiving man who sees any criticism of his objectives or methods as gross disloyalty. Knowing what I know about the late Fidel Castro (I do not attribute corruption to him; he may have done far better in hiding a sybaritic life than Trump has been) I see far more in common between Trump and Castro than between Obama and Castro.

(A warning -- this fits the "hostile witness" category):

https://www.pacificpundit.com/2019/03/02/nbc-ken-dilanian-compares-trump-to-castro/

Someone who actually had been in one of Castro's prisons on an extended stay:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y4aj0DJ7Co

[pbrower2a]

Keating Research for the Denver Post. Favorability, so I won't show it on the map.

Trump 42-55, which is close to the most recent approval rating for Colorado. It does give letter grades, and how I interpret those

A (strongly approve) 24%
B (somewhat approve) 17%
C (mediocre) 11%
D (somewhat disapprove) 12%
F (strongly disapprove) 37% 

Favorability for Senator Cory Gardner is at 40% with 39% unfavorable. 

 

[pbrower2a]

Morning Consult, June 2019

Net approval

-10 or higher
-5 to -9
-1 to -4
tie (white)
+1 to +4
+5 to +9
+10 or higher

DC? Not shown, but don't be stupid. 90% red.

I am not making distinctions above 10.

Note that the net approval for Trump is at +1 in Indiana. No Republican has won nationwide for a century without winning  Indiana by at least 10%, and this includes the two elections in which the Republican won the Electoral College without winning a plurality of total votes. My estimate for Indiana based upon getting everything that dos not disapprove of Trump is that he would win the Hoosier State by 53-47 and would lose nationwide.

(in 1970 and 2012 the Republican won Indiana with slightly more than 10% of a margin and still lost to the Democrat).  

Trump would lose NE-02 and would be at risk of losing NE-01.

I do not yet call a collapse of this Presidency, but I can see its potential. At this stage I see Obama 2008 as the general look of a Presidential election held now. A Democrat picking up everything in any shade of red,  white, or the palest shade of blue, and the Democrat is winning much like Eisenhower in the 1950s. I have frequently compared Obama to Eisenhower for temperament and character, with Obama winning with maps more like those for Eisenhower than those of anyone else's wins.  

[pbrower2a]

The simple fact is that more Americans identify as Democrats than Republicans.  This has been true for some time now.

When was the last time it wasn't true? I'm almost 46, and I don't remember it ever being any other way.

Start of the Great Depression. What has often happened is that southern Democrats such as Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby went Republican and took their constituencies with them  at the voting booth without those people having to admit that they were for all practical purposes Republicans. Of course there are now many Southern whites who have never identified as Democrats while voting age.  

[pbrower2a]

The simple fact is that more Americans identify as Democrats than Republicans.  This has been true for some time now.

When was the last time it wasn't true? I'm almost 46, and I don't remember it ever being any other way.

Start of the Great Depression. What has often happened is that southern Democrats such as Jeff Sessions and Richard Sessions went Republican and took their constituencies with them  at the voting booth without those people having to admit that they were for all practical purposes Republicans. Of course there are now many Southern whites who have never identified as Democrats while voting age. 

That's pretty much it. A lot of it has been offset by moderate to liberal Republicans in New England, the Great Lakes, the West Coast, and now increasingly the more developed areas of the interior west. 100 years ago, the constituencies that gave the plurality or perhaps a small majority of the GOP vote were the only voters to be Democrats.

The entire thing is pretty stupid if you ask me. You have all of these brainwashed 20something (something tells me that these kids should have been taken by DFS or something) arch-conservative kids in rural and recently developed areas who keep saying that they are actually MORE progressive than democrats because that Robert Byrd was in the KKK. Of course, I say that Planned Parenthood, NAACP, and the ACLU were all founded by Republicans and then they miss the point entirely by saying that those organizations were all just invented to get rid of blackie and brownie.

An illustration: between Lincoln and FDR the Republican party had every President except Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson. Republicans established the 'corporate welfare state' that supposedly brought peace, prosperity, and progress' until the model failed so dramatically. I could make the case that FDR kept America from splintering into a divide between fascism o0f the KKK type and a proletarian revolution.

FDR acceded to the idea that working people had to be participants in the bounty of capitalism and not merely producers. The Tennessee Valley Authority allowed the modernization of the Mountain South, and white Southerners (the Mountain South was very white and still is)  gave credit to Democrats so long as there were many people who remembered that. Thus there could be relative liberals such as Al Gore and Bill Clinton, either of whom would be wiped out electorally if they tried to run again in their states.

Note well: the often-racist populists of the Mountain South were politically incompatible with the "Rockefeller" or "Eisenhower" Republicans up north. They still are. American politics is coalition politics, and as Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy brought the often-racist populists of the South into the Republican fold, the more patrician "Eisenhower/Rockefeller" Republicans started leaving the GOP.

It is always possible to see ulterior motives in any reformer. Planned Parenthood? Gigantic (then largely Catholic) families in the urban proletariat were destined to extreme poverty, an observation that held well for Polish-Americans and Italian-Americans until World War II which was effective in the extreme of exposing hidden talent that proved vital to winning a war against the demonic enemies known as the Axis powers. When the NAACP was founded, blacks were heavily Republicans who gave credit to the Party of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. (FDR co-opted Lincoln in the New Deal and especially World War II as a model of what America stood for against the slave system of the old South and the slave systems of the Devil's Reich and Thug Japan as the antithesis of everything fascist. The ACLU's formal predecessor got its start in opposing the degradation of civil liberties during World War I under the Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Add another -- the Sierra Club, founded by Republicans to resist the drive to turn practically every valley in the Sierra watershed into a source of water for California urbanization and agriculture.   

I look at a composite map of elections of Obama and Eisenhower and see that, except for the Great Plains, Obama did well where Eisenhower did well. The three toughest Northern states for Democrats to win between 1928 and 1988 based on whom they voted for -- Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island -- went twice for Eisenhower. Massachusetts and Rhode Island were the only states outside of the South to vote for Al Smith in 1928, and Massachusetts and Minnesota were the only two states to vote against the Nixon landslide of 1972 or the Reagan landslide of 1984 -- as somehow the 49th-best and 50th-best (sole loss) for the winners of 49-state landslides, while Rhode Island was 47th in both years. Eisenhower was the first Republican to win Virginia since Herbert Hoover, and Obama was the first Democrat to win Virginia since the LBJ blowout.     

[pbrower2a]

Then they just talk about how helping these various constituencies is basically a plot to keep them in a permanent needy state that will continually be farmed for votes. Its like believing that smoking isn't dangerous because then the tobacco company would run out of customers. Also, Justice Thomas says that's why he is a reactionary; That is, private and partial interests are bad for their constituents because it distracts from "the common good". This is the core philosophy of less socially advanced white people in less economically advanced areas- They vote Republican because what is good for the rich and powerful is ultimately good for them and what is good for them is bad for the rich and powerful and therefore ultimately bad for them.

Yes. It is about establishing constituencies that one keeps in line with threats from outsiders or of abandonment by the Leadership. Where could such people go for allies?

Having read Albion's Seed, I find that an old pattern of the knack for demanding  little economically so long as people tolerate their culture (anti-intellectual, pro-business, and often with inexplicable and violent feuds) that goes back to folkways of the old border area between northern England and southern Scotland whence such people emigrated to the American backwoods. This insular culture is the basis of such depictions as Lil' Abner and The  Dukes of Hazzard which might seem derogatory outside of Appalachia and the Ozarks. Guess what? People of the Mountain South culture love those depictions!  

The cultural zone of the Backwoods, which includes Appalachia from about the New York-Pennsylvania state line to the middle of Alabama, the hilly country of the Ohio and Tennessee River basins (basically from just south of Indianapolis to about Huntsville, Alabama), and the Ozarks of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma with some overflow into Texas and Mississippi. If it could not get along well with the Puritans of New England (too intellectual), the Quakers of Pennsylvania (too moralizing), or the cavaliers of the Tidewater and the Deep South (too hierarchical)  they could get along little with others. They distrusted the First Peoples to the extreme, becoming the most fearsome Indian-fighters. They did side with the Union during the Civil War, but not out of sympathy with the black slaves; they wanted the hierarchical planters out of their hair -- and they could take their slaves with them. They saw Union generals as the ones who would liberate them from the power of planters who saw Backwoods youth largely as cannon fodder. After the Civil War they were particularly hostile to immigration of any kind. Heck, they even disliked the Mennonites of Swiss and German origin, let alone Irish Catholics, people with strange Polish surnames, or swarthy Eye-talians and Mexicans. Contrast Texas, settled mostly from the Deep South; Florida, which used to be undeniably the deepest part of the South; Virginia, the ancestral source of the Deep South; and North Carolina. These places found that they could tolerate Latino and German immigrants as reality dictated. Then there is Louisiana, settled by the Francophone Acadians and that will not let anyone forget that. Grater New Orleans is multi-ethnic and not simply in the divide between whites and blacks as oppressors and oppressed as is so in much of the rural South.    

The fault with such an insular world is that it becomes increasingly backward with time in economics, technology, and politics. Political figures like Mitch McConnell, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Pence, and Tom Cotton fit it well. Donald Trump has told such people exactly what they want to hear, and he is wildly successful among them in his political appeals even if he offends multitudes of others.

It's not simply tradition: Haredi Jews have no problems with using computer expertise and modern techniques of business to foster their tradition. If anything, thought-out traditions give people the means for dealing with economic and political change. The Catholic Church, the oldest Christian Church in what is undeniably Western (at that the Eastern Orthodox and Monophysite churches are rivals) has shown over centuries a knack for bending without breaking. The Mormon hierarchy may find homosexuality distressing, but it found a way to cope with same-sex marriage: make sure that there is a non-Mormon to do the  'dirty work' of authorizing a same-sex marriage. Do you remember the Mormon ads that showed people living interesting lives, not looking like the early-American or Scandinavian stock common in Mormon country, surprising people by saying "and I am a Mormon"? I can imagine a modification that shows someone stereotypically gay or lesbian who so self-identifies, and surprises people by saying "and I am a Mormon".    

I see the Mountain South as the last part of America to catch onto the idea that Trump is an untrustworthy rogue. Just look at the Morning Consult polls of the states. He has hideous approval ratings in heavily-Mormon Utah and the Great Plains states (other than Oklahoma) for a Republican President. Texas has been Safe R for Republicans since the 1980s, and Trump struggles there.

I say this before any polls tell us what impact any connection between Donald Trump and his SEX FIEND buddy Jeffrey Epstein has upon polling.        

[pbrower2a]

Check back in a week after some current news sinks in.

[pbrower2a]

Minor fluctuations in Trump's approval rating don't matter much. Trump has been consistently underwater since his inauguration, and has not won over the majority of people who disliked him (he has never had the support of a majority of the electorate, and third-party voters and those who disliked both him and Hillary meant he could win narrowly with 46% of the vote). Additionally, he has consistently been below his 46% vote share in his approval ratings. His re-election chances won't be fundamentally changed unless Trump makes inroads beyond his base, so he gets above 46% consistently and regularly, or if he loses part of his base (so if he gets under definitely 40% and probably goes below is previous all-time lows of just above 35%).

At this point I find approval ratings for President Trump remarkably stable. The question remains of whether a large number of people will vote for him because they like his agenda even if they despise his personality. This is the opposite of the situation with Barack Obama at an analogous time. The approval numbers are consistently lower than those of other Presidents at similar points in their Presidencies, roughly two years to eighteen months before the election, since the 1940s.

He needs cultural change to get his way politically. He has not seen the loss of the Protestant fundamentalist vote despite his rakish personal life. He has not gotten into any spats with Mike Pence. Maybe the Trump coalition accepts that the super-rich can get away with anything while the proles get poverty and repression.  

Trump has the most fanatical core support of any incumbent President since FDR. Obviously FDR was able to get the more grudging support out to vote for him. Trump lacks the grudging support  that truly effective Presidents at getting re-elected have. Trump's fanatical supporters will be disappointed that any state other than Vermont is "too close to call" except on behalf of Trump whom they expect to win big on Election Night in 2020 at 7PM...

I can imagine results that range from a bare win for President Trump, with him picking up nothing that he lost in 2016 even if it was then close (those states seem to be spiraling away from him) and losing two of Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin -- which will be barely enough for re-election. In such a scenario he loses the popular election nationwide by 2-3% in part because the Democrat is picking up a few states with 70-30 margins, two of those California and New York to an electoral failure in which he gets roughly 40% of the popular vote as did Hoover or Carter. In the latter scenario, the Democrat wins over 400 electoral votes. We have seen nothing like that since LBJ clobbered Goldwater in 1964. Donald Trump is in no way a successful President.

I can't predict how the electoral map would look for Trump losing worse than did George H W Bush in 1992. The elder Bush was in a different situation, seeking a fourth term for his Party in the White House, and America had gotten jaded of the Reagan-Bush policy.

My prediction map?

big Trump loss by margin (8% or more in 2016 and much the same in 2020)
bare-to-modest loss by Trump in 2016 but will go for the Democrat by at least 8% in 2020)

Trump cannot afford to lose more than two of these five states but wins if he wins three of them -- except that he loses if the two that he loses are Florida and either Michigan or Pennsylvania)

Iowa and wayward districts of Maine and Nebraska -- probably won't make a difference

States that Trump could lose, but only in near-landslides 

Texas -- puts the Democrat past 400 electoral votes 

Beyond this we are seeing strange things happening, and I would be arrogant to predict what strange things would happen.

[pbrower2a]

The Economist/YouGov weekly tracker, July 14-16, 1500 adults including 1140 RV

Adults:

Approve 44 (+4)
Disapprove 48 (-3)

Strongly approve 26 (+1)
Strongly disapprove 40 (nc)

Generic D 39 (-2), Trump 37 (+3)

RV:

Approve 46 (+3)
Disapprove 51 (-2)

Strongly approve 30 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 44 (-2)

Generic D 46 (-3), Trump 42 (+4)

GCB (RV only): D 47 (nc), R 40 (+2)

Do you think people are rallying behind Trump's racism or is this just noise?

I regret to say that people really are rallying to his racism. It is the only political appeal that he has that has any effectiveness.  But that has its limits. Someone seems to always to go too far in accepting such as inspiration, and when that happens the support for Trump falls. The only other possible explanation is that his supporters rally around him as mainstream media start exposing the alleged criminal sexuality of Donald Trump.

For our safety as a people we would be better off if he made such an appeal as "the super-rich need your help so that we can all prosper".

[pbrower2a]

Georgia, PPP:

Q1 Do you approve or disapprove of President Donald Trump’s job performance?

45% approve, 49% disapprove

Q2 Generally speaking if the election for President was today, would you vote for Republican Donald Trump or his Democratic opponent?

46% Donald Trump 50% the Democratic opponent

https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/GeorgiaResults.pdf

North Carolina, PPP:

Q1 Do you approve or disapprove of President Donald Trump’s job performance?

46% approve, 48% disapprove
 
Q2 Generally speaking if the election for President was today, would you vote for Republican Donald Trump or his Democratic opponent?

Donald Trump 44%,  the Democratic nominee 49%

https://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NorthCarolinaResults.pdf

[pbrower2a]

Florida, PPP (for the League of Conservation Voters):

Q1 Do you approve or disapprove of President Donald Trump’s job performance?

approve 45 disapprove 50

Q2 If the election for President were held today, would you vote to re-elect Republican Donald Trump or would you vote for his Democratic opponent? 

44 % Donald Trump  51 % Democratic opponent

https://www.lcv.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/FL-LCV-Memo-June-19.pdf

I am not going into the details, but Trump does far worse on the environment (including climate change and renewable energy)  than on many other issues. 

[pbrower2a]

More from the NPR/Marist poll:

https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1153343240306864129

This just shows how bad the Democratic Party is at messaging. With support for policies like these, we should be crushing the GOP at every turn. Of course, difficult turnout amongst our base (young people and minorities) is also a factor in our hardships.

Why do people pretend Dems didn't pick up 40 seats and flip 7 Governorships? They won because they had a better message than the GOP/Trump. Republicans don't even have a coherent message on healthcare.

They do. That if you can’t afford  healthcare, you can’t afford to live here.

...Or

Rely on faith-healing, rely on quack medicine, or simply get sick and die. Survival is a privilege, as is everything else in a harsh social-darwinist world.

[pbrower2a]

Quinnipiac, Ohio.

...Buckeye voters still give Trump a negative 43 - 52 percent job approval rating, compared to a negative 43 - 54 percent score in a June 13, 2018 Quinnipiac University poll.

Former Vice President Joseph Biden leads President Donald Trump 50 - 42 percent in the critical swing state of Ohio, the only leading Democratic candidate to top the Republican incumbent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

The other leading Democratic contenders each are locked in a dead heat with President Trump, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds:

    46 percent for Trump to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with 45 percent;
    Trump at 46 percent to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 45 percent;
    44 - 44 percent between Trump and California Sen. Kamala Harris;
    44 - 44 percent between Trump and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg;
    44 percent for Trump to 43 percent for New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

Women, black voters and independent voters give Biden his lead in the matchup with Trump. Biden leads 53 - 40 percent among women, as men are split with 46 percent for Biden and 45 percent for Trump. White voters are divided, with 48 percent for Trump and 45 percent for Biden. Black voters go Democratic 84 - 8 percent.

Independent voters go to Biden 55 - 32 percent. Republicans back Trump 86 - 10 percent as Biden leads 96 - 2 percent among Democrats.

"Former Vice President Joseph Biden calls himself a blue-collar guy. With Ohio certainly a blue-collar state, it is no surprise he is the Democrat who runs best against President Donald Trump and is solidly ahead in the Democratic primary in the Buckeye State," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

"Biden runs best against President Trump in every Quinnipiac University state poll so far. To get reelected, Trump will need to win the industrial Midwest. Ohio certainly is key to that plan."

https://poll.qu.edu/ohio/release-detail?ReleaseID=3633

Trump cannot crack 46% against anyone. Ohio will be close in 2020, but I can say the same with Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. Biden wins Ohio outright, and the difference between Biden and the others looks largely to be name recognition.

I'm guessing that Elizabeth Warren may be too patrician in appeal for Ohio, but not by much if Trump mucks up.

Things are bad for Trump winning re-election when Texas is iffy and implies 400 electoral votes for the Democrat. Ohio implies something between 315 and 375 electoral votes for the Democrat.   

[pbrower2a]

Magellan Strategies, Colorado: "likely voters" (whatever that means at this stage)


Democratic voters have a slight edge in voter intensity heading into the 2020 elections, though Republicans and unaffiliated voters show a high level of interest as well.

Currently, Colorado voters prefer Democrats to have control of Congress by a 10-point margin, 47% to 37%, over Republicans.

A majority of voters, 57%, disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as President, compared to only 39% who approve of the job he is doing.

President Trump trails a generic Democratic Party candidate by 12 points, 44% to 32% in a 2020 ballot test, with 15% of voters choosing some other candidate and 8% being undecided.

Governor Jared Polis currently has a +12% job approval rating as 49% approve of the job he is doing, 37% disapprove and 14% are unsure.

https://magellanstrategies.com/magellan-strategies-colorado-survey-2020-voters/

More evidence that Colorado is spiraling out of reach for Trump... and probably Senator Corey Gardner as well.

[pbrower2a]

I'm basically starting over with the polls of Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio because I cannot quite locate the last such map. All five states were within ten points of being dead even in 2016, and only one of them looks as if it won't be in 2020. (Guess which one!)

Trump approval:

40% or less
41-44%
45-49% and negative
tie (white)
45-49% and positive
50-54%
55% or higher

[pbrower2a]

I'm basically starting over with the polls of Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio because I cannot quite locate the last such map. All five states were within ten points of being dead even in 2016, and only one of them looks as if it won't be in 2020. (Guess which one!)

OK, going back to June:

Pollster Zogby did a poll of a few ''battleground states'', there is no matchup but they asked about Trump approval.

AZ : 47/51
FL : 48/50 9obsolete due to a new poll)
MI : 40/61
OH : 46/53 (obsolete due to a new poll)
PA : 44/55
SC : 57/42
WI : 45/53

My observations
-I don't see why the polled SC, it's not really a ''battleground state'', GA or NC would have been more logical
-Ohio numbers are a bit strange considering how well republicans did last year in the state and considering that Trump had a 53% approval rate according to exit polls. The fact that Trump has the same approval rate in Ohio than in Wisconsin is hard to believe
-Numbers in PA/AZ/WI are fairly realistic
-Numbers in OH/FL and especially MI are probably understating Trump approval
-It's clear that the best path to victory for dems remains MI + PA + WI

https://zogbyanalytics.com/news/892-the-zogby-poll-president-trump-s-job-approval-rating-in-key-battleground-states

Sure, it is Zogby, but it looks conventional enough.

54-46 Biden/Trump
53-47 Sanders/Trump
52-48 Warren/Trump
52-48 Harris/Trump
51-49 Buttigieg/Trump

Gravis Marketing, a nonpartisan research firm, conducted a random survey of 767 individuals across the state of Maine. The poll was conducted on June 24th and has a margin of error of 3.5%. The survey was conducted using interactive voice responses and an online panel of cell phone users. The results are weighted by the voting demographics. The poll was paid for by Gravis Marketing.

(45-51 approval/disapproval)
 

Trump over Biden 57%-37%
Trump over Sanders 57%-35%
Trump over Warren 60%-28%
Trump over Buttigieg 60%-28%

Trump approval: 60/37 (+23)
Pelosi approval: 30/62 (-32)

http://www.gravismarketing.com/polling-and-market-research/2019-gravis-marketing-kentucky-poll

Texas voters give Trump a split 48 - 49 percent job approval rating. Men approve 55 - 43 percent, as women disapprove 55 - 42 percent.

https://poll.qu.edu/texas/release-detail?ReleaseID=2625
 

New York: it is favorability, but favorability is close enough in a state not really in  contest:



We get few polls of New York State, anyway, and none have ever looked good for the President.

https://scri.siena.edu/2019/06/10/voters-on-end-of-session-agenda-yes-on-marijuana-55-40

Trump approval:

40% or less or disapproval over 52%
41-44% or disapproval over 50%
45-49% and negative
tie (white)
45-49% and positive
50-54%
55% or higher

Most other polls have been superseded or involve the 50-state polling of Morning Consult, and I would contaminate neither this nor that collection.

(Please do not discuss this map until I complete adding polls back to June 1, 2019).

[pbrower2a]

Michigan: Climate Nexus, July 14-17 820 RV

Approve 42
Disapprove 54

Strongly approve 19
Strongly disapprove 42

Biden 49, Trump 36
Sanders 48, Trump 37
Warren 44, Trump 38
Harris 41, Trump 38
Buttigieg 40, Trump 37
Booker 39, Trump 37

It corroborates a June poll with similar measures of approval and disapproval. This poll does something new, subdividing voters on what matters heavily to voters. On hot-button issues that have little to do with either the environment or the economy, these issues might be decisive to voters:

abortion 11%
gun policy 8%
opioid epidemic 4%
education 10%
foreign policy 4%
terrorism 9%
composition of the Supreme Court 4%


Climate change really is serious because it will influence energy use, agricultural activity (agriculture is a bigger part of the Michigan economy than outsiders realize), recreational opportunities, and the overall quality of life.

How Michigan voters see climate change:

very worried 32%
somewhat worried 33%
not too worried 23%
not at all worried 12%

They believe that the auto industry is extremely important to the state's economy. Even so, Michiganders are pro-environment.

But even if vehicle emissions are a problem, voters recognize a possible solution:

MI3...As you may know, individuals that purchase or lease an electric vehicle can receive a federal tax credit of upto $7,500. However, this credit is only available for the first 200,000 electric vehicles sold by each manufacturer. Given what you know about the electric vehicle tax credit, do you agree or disagree with the following statement:The federal tax credit for electric vehicles should extend beyond each manufacturer’s first 200,000 vehicles.

Strongly agree 36%
Somewhat agree 30%
Somewhat disagree 11%
Strongly disagree 7%
Not sure 15%

[pbrower2a]

Early prediction: Ohio and Iowa will have the sharpest Democratic swings from 2016 to 2020.

[pbrower2a]

California-PPIC
 https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/ppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-the-environment-july-2019.pdf

Trump approval sits at 32%-62% (-30)

Trump is also underwater in every region of the state including the inland (-18%)

No surprise here. Note that Donald Trump does even worse on environmental issues than overall, as in Florida and Michigan in which such issues are focuses of recent polls. Whether it is the President's denial of global warming or stewardship of federal property, the environment can be a theme that defeats him in 2020. If Democrats flip only Florida and Michigan against Trump, then they win outright.

Texas: UT-Tyler, July 24-27, 1414 RV

Approve 40
Disapprove 54

O'Rourke 49, Trump 38
Warren 41, Trump 38
Sanders 39, Trump 37
Harris 40, Trump 39
Biden 37, Trump 37
Trump 39, Buttigieg 33

(electric eel -- a shocker!)

It could be that Texas is becoming closer to the USA as a whole in its political orientation. I have seen plenty of polls in which Texas is basically even in approval and disapproval, but unless Trump shtick has recently become unusually offensive to Texas sensibilities, I find this one hard to believe. If you dislike this university poll (as it comes from a college within the well-regarded University of Texas system), then wait for another.  

Trump approval:

40% or less or disapproval over 52%
41-44% or disapproval over 50%
45-49% and negative
tie (white)
45-49% and positive
50-54%
55% or higher

[pbrower2a]

Texas: UT-Tyler, July 24-27, 1414 RV

Approve 40
Disapprove 54

O'Rourke 49, Trump 38
Warren 41, Trump 38
Sanders 39, Trump 37
Harris 40, Trump 39
Biden 37, Trump 37
Trump 39, Buttigieg 33

"Imagine if you will, a world where Texas votes to the left of the nation as a whole..."

Back to the 'Seventies for Texas?



1976, the last year in which Texas  voted for the Democratic nominee for President.  Much of Texas had lots of New Deal Democrats of the LBJ era, especially in the rural areas. But -- Dallas and Harris (greater Houston) Counties were R-leaning.

This is more like what a D win of Texas looks like -- the close election for US Senate in 2018. Gains for a Democrat necessary for winning Texas' 38 electoral votes would be in sheer numbers in urban counties, with flips of such suburban counties as Denton, Collin, and Galveston and (containing the small city Waco (McLennan):




Urban Texas has trended decidedly D except for such cities as Abilene, Amarillo, Lubbock, Midland, Odessa, and Wichita Falls which are not booming metropolises -- and it has been growing -- while rural Texas is losing population like most of the Plains states. The heavily Hispanic areas  remain strongly Democratic, and Trump is not winning them over.

Texas used to be much poorer, much more rural, and much lower in educational achievements than the US as a whole. The poor whites are becoming less dominant in Texas politics, and that bodes ill for Donald Trump and a GOP which relies heavily upon resentments of well-educated people.  

Urban Texas is where the votes are.