Trump approval ratings thread 1.6

[pbrower2a]

Is there any correlation between AP approval and re-election when it is this close to election day? I can't image 41% is a good sign.. let alone the disapproval over 60%.

Rather early I predicted that approval and disapproval numbers would correlate to match-up numbers, and that those involving the President would dominate all else. So it was in 2004 and 2012, and so it would be in 2020. The President sets the agenda, and whether he succeeds or fails at getting it enacted  in a way that people like is more important than how strong or weak the opponent is. The match-up that comes from 42% approval and 57% disapproval of President Trump will result in something like a 57-42 defeat in the popular vote. OK, which set of approval and disapproval numbers will I go with?

The electoral match-up numbers will tell us everything. Electoral results will of course be definitive. By then this and its predecessors will be of interest to those who look in the archives.   

I predicted that it would apply both at state and nationwide polls. I considered disapproval more telling than approval because disapproval is giving up home in the President.  It is far easier to raise approval among the undecided than to undo disapproval.

[pbrower2a]

Civiqs, 10/18

National: 41/56 (-15)

Alaska: 46/52 (-6)
Arizona: 44/54 (-10)
Colorado: 38/59 (-21)
Florida: 45/53 (-8)
Georgia: 45/52 (-7)
Iowa: 47/51 (-4)
Kansas: 49/48 (+1)
Maine: 35/62 (-27)
Michigan: 41/57 (-16)
Minnesota: 40/58 (-18)
Montana: 48/50 (-2)
Nevada: 40/56 (-16)
New Hampshire: 37/59 (-22)
New Mexico: 44/53 (-9)
North Carolina: 44/54 (-10)
Ohio: 46/51 (-5)
Pennsylvania: 42/55 (-13)
South Carolina: 49/48 (+1)
Texas: 48/50 (-2)
Virginia: 39/58 (-19)
Wisconsin: 43/55 (-12)

https://civiqs.com/results/approve_president_trump?uncertainty=true&annotations=true&zoomIn=true

This may be my last approval/disapproval map before the election.

Trump approval 51-53%
Trump approval net 42% or less positive but under 50%
exact tie or net approval negative but under 50% white
disapproval 50-52%
disapproval 53 or 54%
disapproval 55% or higher

Trump will lose every state in red or maroon. Pink is iffy. There are no surprises in states in gray; they wiil vote as in 2016, if probably not as strongly for Trump. Disapproval means giving up hope in this President.

I hope that I am not simply speaking for myself, but Americans seem to have tired of Donald Trump and on the whole are ready for change.

[pbrower2a]

I would love this map, but it's not gonna happen

So would I, especially if it relates the US Senate. Senate seats in Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, South Carolina, and even Texas are more important to Democrats than are the electoral votes of those states.

 Of course there is some reverse psychology: I would prefer that Democrats thought themselves in peril of losing everything so that they be motivated to vote. This said, we must be objective. It is better for Trump supporters to know that their idol has feet of clay according to a majority of American voters and not get angry at a state when it 'fails' to recognize that Donald Trump is the greatest thing to have ever happened to American politics. I am an honest chronicle more than an advocate; either can be as easily right or wrong.

Poor approval ratings and even worse disapproval ratings got Trump to this point. Those were better proxies for the real matchups, and I see a range of possibilities from a bare Biden win to an electoral blowout.

What would a Trump win look like? States that were close in 2016 (ME, MN, NV, and NH) would still be close. We have had three two-term Presidencies in which the winner the first time won with much the same map, with no more than five states switching between the initial election and the re-election bid. That was five states for Clinton (CO, GA, and MT going from Clinton to Dole and AZ and FL going from the elder Bush to Clinton), three in 2004 (IA and NM going from Gore to Dubya and NH going from Dubya to Kerry), and two and one independent-voting district (IN, NC, and NE-02 going from Obama to Romney).

2000 was a nail-biter, and so was 2004, suggesting that even if Dubya was objectively a poor President, then the political climate did not change. Kerry thought that he had a chance in Ohio, and that would have been enough to oust Dubya... and, really, the pattern of re-election bids being like the initial election would still hold. Obama was close to losing Florida, which would have made a huge loss (56), but Obama would have still won decisively. If there was any oddity about 2012 it was that the Republicans ran as strong a challenger as any Party ever did against an above-average President. I love to compare Obama to Eisenhower, and an opponent weaker than Romney would have allowed Obama to win in the range of 360-380 electoral votes (Obama would have held North Carolina and NE-02 while losing Indiana, but picking up Arizona or Georgia). This pattern is not applicable solely to the twenty-four years between 1992 and 2016; it held for Ike in 1956 and really Reagan in 1984, with few states switching sides.

Because of COVID-19 I may have to stay home on Election Night. If this site does not break down, I will give a play-by-play with my own quirky commentary. (Should this site break down I will be operating something similar elsewhere on someone else's site, complete with a musical interlude. A hint: I will be using the overture to J S Bach's Cantata #29, which has something to do with "elections" in the kingdom of Saxony in the 18th century (and Bach is one of the few points of pride that I have about the German gentile part of my ancestry... if I could protest Nazism for the disgrace that it is by exchanging German gentile origin for something else, especially Ashkenazi Jewish, I would, which is exactly what I told a Nazi-sympathizing Holocaust denier who attacked me for being Jewish (which I am not, but I told him that I would rather be a Jew than a Nazi because Judaism would require no compromise of my ethical or cultural values). Most German-Americans have a love-hate relationship with Germany, and it's obvious what they hate about Germany. It isn't cuisine, even if German cuisine is objectively awful. German-Americans dine out often... in Chinese and Mexican restaurants. So much for that.

Here's an organ transcription:

synthesized:

There is the overture of the cantata, there is an original work for solo violin that Back reshaped into the introduction to the cantata, and there are plenty of arrangements. I would not be surprised if some German network uses this music as an introduction for its election coverage. German elections have their own mystery and drama, something I prefer remains true of American elections as well. 

One thing is certain: I am not endorsing for President someone whose ethnic heritage is half like mine and half something similar. Eternal damnation to fascism of all kinds, whatever national garb it co-opts.

One now must be at least 28 to have been around when the last incumbent President was defeated, and even that was an oddity (the elder Bush was basically a continuation of the Reagan Presidency), or 44 to have remembered Carter defeating Ford, 57 to have been around when Kennedy was assassinated... and perhaps seventy to remember the 1956 election. Incumbent Presidents have a built-in edge in getting re-elected unless they waste that edge. At this point I believe that Donald Trump has wasted that edge, and I predict that will be my conclusion as I "sign off" on "my" coverage. Fcuk COVID-19 as well as fascism in any form and any national garb.

[pbrower2a]

There is also a version for solo piano and one for guitar. It could probably be arranged for brass band or wind ensemble. If I did synthesizer performances I would exploit all sorts of sonorities... maybe it could be arranged for string quartet?

Of course there is the canonical arrangement as the baroque (original instrument) overture to the original cantata #29.

[pbrower2a]

Oct. 20-25

MI (789 LV, MoE: 4%)
Biden 51%
Trump 44%

SEN: 52-46 Peters

Trump approval: 46/52 (-6)

WI (809 LV, MoE: 4%)
Biden 57%
Trump 40%

Trump approval: 41/58 (-17)

https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1216a52020StateBattlegrounds-MIWI.pdf

[pbrower2a]

44% approval for the President is fully inadequate for winning nationwide in either the popular vote or the Electoral College (the former is irrelevant and the latter is definitive).

This is not statistical, but some indications are that

VLADIMIR PUTIN

has already prepared for the defeat of his "best American pupil".

[pbrower2a]

We still haven't heard from him and his inaccurate prediction

Here I am. Strange things can happen late.

Trump and the Republican Party did make some clever, if distressing, ads late in the campaign that (in Trump's case in Florida) conflated Joe Biden to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez directed at Cuban-American and Venezuelan-American voters who might not responded to lame ads by Romney against Obama in 2012, but worked well in 2020.

In Michigan I saw ads for the Republican Party late in the campaign that went to this message.

(Female voiceover):

The election is coming up. Let's look at the Democrats.

The Democrats will raise my taxes. I can't afford that.

They will take away the Trump tax cuts and that is not what I need when my husband is looking for work. I can't afford that.

Democrats are on the side of looters and rioters. We need to support our police. 

They want to bring new environmental regulations that will kill jobs.

I'm voting Republican.

Late ads directed at the few remaining swing voters can change minds, especially if the appeal is to basic fears and even one of the nominees has created the problem (look at all the social discord when Obama was President).   

[pbrower2a]

When the electoral results are available in in full, I hope to connect approval and disapproval numbers to the electoral results. Trump got horrid approval numbers, and he lost (or is about to lose) his bid for re-election. Maybe he and the GOP was able to convince some voters that America needs to maintain (and even expand) tax cuts largely for the super-rich, prevent efforts to achieve environmental reform, and endorse brutal enforcement of the law even against those who dissent with the Great and Infallible Leader. Trump should have lost -- and seems to have done so.   

Such will be a good wrap-up suitable to some analysis and commentary. At this point the approval numbers indicate a terribly-failed President. He was not a competent administrator.  He well served only a small portion of the American population while hurting much of the rest. He bungled the discourse on ethnic divides, going against the mainstream.

No, there are not "good people on both sides" on violent racism any more than there are good people on both sides on arson, drug trafficking, child molestation, or armed robbery. It is possible to say that he misstated his position and that he meant it only about people who want to keep statues to defenders of slavery up in Southern cities. (Imagine that you are a black child in some large Southern city and you see a statue to some military or political figure of the Confederate States of America that existed solely to keep your black ancestors in bondage). Those are questionable heroes. We could replace those with heroes of subsequent American wars -- WWI, WWII, Korea, and both Gulf Wars.

Mississippi has replaced its Confederate-informed flag with a more wholesome magnolia.

Above all, Donald Trump bungled the response to COVID-19, creating a muddle for the US as a whole when it needed decisive leadership that could have saved countless lives. The amazing reality about the 2020 Presidential election is that Trump came close to winning re-election.     

[pbrower2a]

I just wanted to point out, TX, FL, and GA are R states for a reason, D's will never get a 413,  EC map, 2nd amendment rights and guns are essential to even AA and Latinos in Deep South. That's why MT, KS and SC went R too

AA and Latinos are liberal in North on guns due to gang violence but not in the Deep South as well as in OH and Mahoning County. That why it stayed R with plenty of AA voters

There were polls. Texas had conflicting polls, and Texas got closer than it was since the 1990's. The observation that Texas is becoming more like America as a whole due to people moving in from more liberal areas should suggest trouble for the GOP in Texas over the next years. Georgia is becoming much more urban and better educated; see also North Carolina, let alone Virginia.

Southern blacks may be more culturally conservative than Northern blacks, but they are far to the Left of the white populations of their states. You tell me whether blacks in any part of the USA are attracted to 'militia' movements.

In contrast, just look at Iowa. It used to be a relatively liberal state, and it has clearly drifted rightward. This state voted for Dukakis in 1988, which shows how liberal it once was. That is over. Iowa as the "new West Virginia" of the Midwest?

States move due to demographic change -- often people moving in or out, and changes in economic reality. West Virginia used to be reliably D except in R landslides like 1972 (it split on Eisenhower) when coal mining was a reliable source of well-paying jobs and the then-powerful United Mine Workers dominated politics. Now that the coal seams are largely mined out, West Virginia working-class people have had to find work elsewhere -- often out of state.     

[pbrower2a]

Welp this thread is going to be useless now lol

We may get to see how lame this Lame Duck can be.

[pbrower2a]

Welp this thread is going to be useless now lol

For reference purposes it might be. Maybe pbrower2a or someone following closely could  post some highlights of this thread, like approval highs and lows? Like what era did Trump's approval was at its best and worst? Like what states average approval for Trump was highest and lowest? And so on?

I expect a post-mortem on this catastrophically-failed Presidency (and it is exactly that). Approval numbers after the election may show some correlation to the vote in the states.

Maybe Trump did better because he and the GOP ran some "you may hate Donald Trump, the GOP,  and our agenda -- but you will be sorry about voting against us" ads. Maybe Trump won Florida because of ads that connected (speciously but effectively) Joe Biden to Fidel and Raul Castro  and to Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro). To these I see one bright side: it is a good thing that the Biden Administration not get cozy with Maduro or Raul Castro.

It is possible to sell a very bad product such as pornography, cigarettes, or hard liquor -- and that is before I discuss awful stuff that poor people end up with because they can't afford something better. Donald Trump is a bad product as a politician, nearly all vice and nearly no virtue. One likes his agenda or one doesn't. Donald Trump has been a master of selling his personality, whatever one can get out of that.

I hate his guts. I doubt that anyone ever saw me harboring any respect for his personality or his conduct. I can think of people like John Kasich or Jeb Bush, with whom one might have disagreed without hating as I hate Trump. I wouldn't be so wound up. I thought, and still do, that the right vehicle for conservatism is a conservative who differs from Barack Obama in only one important aspect of our 44th President: being a conservative instead of a liberal. (Ethnicity does not matter!) That would be a legitimately good President. Do you not believe me? Just take a look at this map:

The definitive moderate Republican may have been Dwight Eisenhower, and I have heard plenty of Democrats praise the Eisenhower Presidency. He went along with Supreme Court rulings that outlawed segregationist practices, stayed clear of the McCarthy bandwagon, and let McCarthy implode.


Image Link
 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2008 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red.

[pbrower2a]

A post-mortem would be welcome. Sample questions for persons over 14:

1. Did you vote in the 2020 Presidential election

....a. Yes
....b. No (but over 18)
....c. I was too young to vote (if so go to Question #3)
....d. no response/other (if d, go to Question #3)

2. Did you vote for

....a. Donald Trump and Michael Pence, the Republican nominees
....b. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominees
....c. someone else
....d. I voted in other races, but not for the President
....e. I don't remember or I refuse to say. 

3. Do you believe that the official results of the 2020 Presidential election

....a. fairly represent the will of the American people
....b. do not fairly represent the will of the American people
....c. no opinion/undecided

4. Do you believe that claims of electoral fraud by one side or another

.... a. reflect reality
.... b. do not reflect reality (if so, then go to Question #6)
.... c. no opinion/undecided (if so, then go to Question #6)

5.  Was the electoral fraud that you think happened

.... a. offsetting (both sides did it)
.... b. too slight to make a difference
.... c. on the net helped Joe Biden
.... d. on the net helped Donald Trump
.... e. no opinion/undecided

6. Is your overall assessment of the Trump Presidency

.... a. strong approval
.... b. more approval than disapproval
.... c. about even
.... d. more disapproval than approval
.... e. strong disapproval
.... f. no opinion/undecided

7. As we all know, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris promised a great change from the direction of this country from what Donald Trump and Mike Pence promised. However you voted recently do you see what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and their ability to bring change, and the content of the change that they aspire to bring:

.... a. strongly favorable
.... b. favorable
.... c. somewhere in between
.... d. unfavorable
.... e. unfavorable
.... f. no opinion/don't know

8. Although it is a long time away, how do you expect to vote for President in 2024

.... a. for the Republicans for President and Vice-President
.... b. for the Democrats for President and Vice-President
.... c. for an independent or Third Party pair of nominees
.... d. I do not expect to be voting in 2024
.... e. I do not know


9. What is your age?

.... a. at least 14 but under 18
.... b. 18 to 25
.... c. 26 to 40
.... d. 41 to 54
.... e. 55 to 64
.... f. 65 or older
.... g. refused to answer.

[pbrower2a]

Trump was closer to 50% than at 40%, due to fact unemployment is going back down to 5% average, it's currently at 6.6%, that's why Rs aren't dead politically with a 413 map

Trump lost. Maybe he did better with the economy than one could have expected despite the effects of COVID-19. For many, how well the economy works (creating jobs) matters far more than does his fascistic antics. Trump would have come close to winning even had he started pogroms, which says much about the concerns that people have for jobs and 'food on the table'. Remember: Adolf Hitler, who did far worse things than Trump, was popular among German gentiles and would have probably won free elections even he let the Centre, Nationalists, and Social Democrats challenge him in 1936 or so.

Note well: In case you have any lingering delusion of the reliable superiority of the common man over other parts of humanity, especially of segments of humanity by sect or ethnic group within the common man, the 2020 election should disabuse you of that. Donald Trump got more support from white working people than from among the well-educated Model Minorities and perhaps even well-educated white people. Donald Trump is a thoroughly-horrid person, and his personal vices are well known. This is not a partisan statement. The last two Republican nominees who lost to Barack Obama, Barack Obama, and of course Joe Biden himself, are far better persons than Donald Trump. People extremely self-righteous about their religious devotion often voted for Trump despite his sexual misconduct that makes Bill Clinton look like the ideal of a Mormon missionary by contrast. Trump's business dealings and his personal conduct, as well as that of his campaign (a fish stinks from the head, folks) also demonstrate the moral rot that Donald Trump is.

If you want illustration of how capable the common man is of evil, then remember that the most dangerous people of time, political leaders who spurred genocide were able to find common people to be perpetrators. Stalin's gulags and Hitler's murder camps relied upon the common people to do the worst possible, including firing machine guns at helpless people whom those people had just herded to a shooting pit, introducing Zyklon-B into a fake shower, or having trained dogs dispatch emaciated prisoners. Brutal guards under the Japanese in World War II? The barely-learned people who killed in the name of creating a new and glorious Kampuchea under the Khmer Rouge?  Genocides in Rwanda and Turkey? Likewise. The people attending the sick spectacle of an auto-da-fe or the execution of an alleged sorcerer in which someone was literally burned at the stake were not largely physicians, attorneys, poets, and university professors. Add to this, the process of dragooning slave laborers for the nightmarish plantations and keeping slaves in bondage involved the common man as captors of new slaves and catchers of escaped slaves.

I have no illusion that we Americans are any better than the Spaniards who celebrated the immolation of some converso who lapsed by refusing to eat pork or out of sentimentality did some elements of celebrating Passover, the Turks who butchered Armenians or Greeks during or soon after World War II, citizens of the Third Reich or the Soviet Union, or Rwanda not so long ago. Human goodness requires reinforcement within the educational system and the mass culture, and when that  reinforcement disappears or is short-circuited, then all Hell can break loose. We are just lucky that Donald Trump was not as adept a despot as he dreamed of being.

End of rant.

[pbrower2a]

Well, here are the results

Somehow Georgia and North Carolina are undecided, but as I see it, the leads are large enough that no recounts are going to change the crude numbers significantly. Georgia is a bare win for Biden and North Carolina is a bare win for Trump, as I see it. Thus

J. Biden, K. Harris (D) 305 electoral votes
D. Trump, M. Pence (r- INC) 232 electoral votes

decided by 1% or less saturation 2 --marginal wins
decided by 1% or more but less than 5% saturation 3 -- weak wins
decided by 5% or more but less than 10% saturation 5 -- strong wins
decided by 10% or more saturation 7 -- overpowering wins

A few comments:

1. All states have 'landed' into the categories that they will stay in. A few states, most notably California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, and Ohio have 4% or more of their vote outstanding. The vote outstanding in those states (as of November 12) are presumably almost entirely from absentee voters in urban areas. Except for Ohio these are in states that are already non-close (10% or higher) wins for Biden, so none of those could be category-changers. The 4% of the vote out in Ohio would have to go about 90% for Biden for Ohio to go from 'close to being close' to 'close". Ohio remains in the 'strong Trump'    

Only eight states were decided by 5% or less, and I am guessing the often wayward Second Congressional districts of Maine and Nebraska. That is 125 of 538 electoral votes. The rest of the country wasn't really close.

If I am in the foreign intelligence service of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Russian Federation or the People's Republic of China, I would see a map like this and see a country grossly unstable and potential prey for mischief. If conquering the United States is effectively impossible, then splintering it into warring entities (think of the former Yugoslavia) looks much easier. If I am in the foreign intelligence service of such a country as Germany, India, Japan, or the UK and prefer a solid USA as a reliable ally I would be concerned about the polarization. Considering that the D-R split is on cultural lines almost as severe as those that rifted the former Yugoslavia, I would see great opportunity if I wanted the one great superpower to disintegrate.

I see another parallel in Spain in the 1930's, where large parts of the country were about as modern in attitudes of the time as... well, New England... and others had attitudes characteristic of the late middle ages. Spanish reactionaries accepted only one modernity: technology, and that is far from enough for getting along with people with modern sensibilities. That modernity was adequate for the victory of Francisco Franco. America may not have much of a radical Left, but it certainly has a significant, fascist Right.

3. The map is amazingly like that of 2016, with only five states and one Congressional district changing sides (and I am calling Georgia for Biden). This is very close to what I would have expected with an even shift of 1.6% of the popular vote from Trump to Biden. The voters dying off or becoming unable to vote due to debility from 2016 were almost entirely over 55, and those voters (it is about the same for the Silent Generation born 1925 to 1942, Boomers born between 1943 and 1960, and the first five years of Generation X born between 1961 and 1981, using the definitions of Howe and Strauss) were about 5% more R than D and new voters replacing them (almost entirely Millennial adults under 40) are about 20% more D than R. Figuring that the potential age-span of voters is about 60 years, and about 1.6% of the voters from the last Presidential election dies off or goes too senile to vote each year, that is about a 1.6 shift if nothing else really changes.

That may be the best explanation. That would have been enough to swing Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and the election from the 2016 election to the 2020 election, and those states went from bare wins for Trump to bare wins for Biden. Biden may not have obvious youth appeal, but Trump does nothing to offset the D drift among Millennial voters. Trump did hold Florida and its 29 electoral votes -- only to lose instead those of Arizona (11), Georgia (16), and Nebraska's Second Congressional District (1) instead. That is one electoral vote short of a wash.

4. Here are two approval polls from fully after the election:

Ipsos Core Political Data (weekly), Nov. 6-10, 1363 adults including 1169 RV

Adults:

Approve 39 (-2)
Disapprove 56 (+3)

Strongly approve 23 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 43 (nc)


RV:

Approve 40 (-2)
Disapprove 57 (+3)

Strongly approve 25 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 44 (-1)

So Ipsos has a very different picture than The Economist does.

Obviously one typically had to register to vote, and not all who registered to vote did so. 57% disapproval is hideous, suggesting a political failure. The 43% strongly disapproving of President Trump were never going to vote for him, and their attitudes range from seeing him as at least an abject failure to  (well, I will spare us all any graphic language). Half of those registered voters, if they represent actual voters, still voted for him if they disapproved of his Presidency. Was it of the personality or the results?

Another pollster has actual voters as the measure, and those are close (why should one expect otherwise) to the electoral results:

The Economist/YouGov weekly tracker, Nov. 8-10, 1500 RV, including 802 Biden voters and 599 Trump voters

All RV:

Approve 46 (+1)
Disapprove 51 (-3)

Strongly approve 32 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 45 (-4)


Biden voters:

Approve 3
Disapprove 97

Strongly approve 1
Strongly disapprove 92


Trump voters:

Approve 95
Disapprove 4

Strongly approve 72
Strongly disapprove 1

In this case, disapproval of Trump was close to the electoral result in Biden votes.

5. As with Obama going into 2012, so I figured it would be so with Trump in 2020: the best predictor of the electoral result would be 100-disapproval. I could not imagine any metric better for predicting either the nationwide result than this number. An incumbent President, whether a good one by most non-ideological measures or a horrid one by most non-ideological measures, has control of the agenda so that he can have a good chance of winning undecided voters as election time approaches. An incumbent politician of any kind whose approval numbers are 43 approve and 45 disapprove rather early has plenty of opportunity to get 50% of the vote in the next election by supporting popular legislation in his bailiwick and having a spirited campaign. But get disapproval over 51 at any point, and you have trouble. Coming back from such a number or despite facing such disapproval numbers is difficult-to-highly unlikely.

6. I was one of those who saw Trump crashing and burning in a landslide -- something in the range of 413 electoral votes. As it turns out, Trump did far better than 100-disapproval just a couple months ago suggested. I saw him as a failure in the league of Hoover in 1932 and Carter in 1980, if for different reasons. I could easily say of him "I hate his guts" as I rarely do of any political figure short of any of the three emperors-in-all-but name of North Korea, Haile Mengistu, Pol Pot, either Duvalier, Idi Amin, Satan Hussein, either Assad, or al-Baghdadi.

I have compared the character of Donald Trump to the most incontrovertibly-infamous three Roman Emperors for corruption, cruelty, incompetence, and sexual depravity: Caligula, Nero, and Commodus. Imperial Rome was a corrupt society in the extreme, and Presidents of the United States on the whole are far better than the lot of Imperatores Romanorum. Trump better fits as a Roman Emperor than a President of the United States for his intemperance and his despotic tendencies.

7. So how did Trump make it closer than I expected? He must have convinced many that even if they hated his guts they would be wise to vote for him... almost certainly out of fear of crime in the streets, left-wing terrorism, socialism as practiced under Fidel/Raul Castro or Hugo Chavez/Nicolas Maduro, and a faltering economy. Of course I give credit to Barack Obama for the seven-year boom going into the Trump Presidency; of course I like the civic peace that was the norm under Obama; of course I prefer scandal-free public and personal life of the President and his administration; of course I prefer a President who defers to science and expertise instead of gut feelings. I fault the President for his bungled treatment of COVID-19. I consider a vile critter whom I would never want in my midst. I despise his serial adultery and his disrespect for our service personnel, current and former. As someone with a disability that messes up my life, I have nothing but contempt for anyone who mocks disabilities. Anyone who can say that there are good people on both sides of a divide between violent fascists and... well, anyone who stands for the virtues needed in a democratic society to keep it democratic tears at democracy.   But even more, I can only think ill of someone who has bragged about grabbing women by their crotches.

OK, Donald Trump is about as pure an example of Homo oeconomicus, the person has his own gain and indulgence above all else in life, as anyone who has ever gotten so high in the political arena. He knows something that most of us don't want to admit: that the highest principle that many have is their economic lives, and that they will do odious things and align with odious persons and causes to that end. His campaign exploited that quite competently.

8. The observation that Texas is becoming increasingly like America as a whole in its politics is well justified. It seems to be going the opposite direction of Iowa and Ohio. Iowa and Ohio moved slightly from the high-single-digit margins that I associate with Trump in 2016, but Texas moved more to the Left than just about any state (OK, Maine at-large, Minnesota, and New Hampshire). Except that Texas will likely have 40 electoral votes in 2014 I would not speak of this.

          

[pbrower2a]

https://twitter.com/apalmerdc/status/1329035321846194176

What was the highest Trump got? Didn't he start out the gate in January 2019 around inauguration with like 49% approval or something?

Interested to see how high the 'intro bump' is for Biden/Harris.

The first polls typically begin with measures of favorability (optimism about the winning pol).

It was an inauspicious start for Trump. Most who voted against him had very low expectations. Regrettably, Trump failed to meet that.   

[pbrower2a]

He has had plenty of opportunity to make his case. His administration has been one crisis following another. Nothing has culminated in an incontrovertible victory. The best that could have ever happened is for something to cool down while nothing else emerges.

The saving grace for him, the one that has kept his disapprovals from reaching the 70's or so, is that the same people who despise him for one thing are the ones who despise him for others. So people who hate his ethnic and religious bigotry also hate his foreign policy, his environmental policy, and his handling of COVID-19. Trump has his cult, and it is arguably the biggest cult that has ever existed. 

[pbrower2a]

Ipsos Core Political Data (weekly), Nov. 13-17, 1346 adults including 1121 RV

Adults:

Approve 37 (-2)
Disapprove 57 (+1)

Strongly approve 23 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 43 (nc)


RV:

Approve 38 (-2)
Disapprove 59 (+2)

Strongly approve 24 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 44 (nc)


They also asked about approval of Biden as President-elect, which I'll post in the Biden approval thread.

My estimate of how that looks on a map.

This is what some called the nutty 413-EV vote, but this did seem possible. The tie that I show reflects that Donald Trump won Alaska by 10.09% of the vote

That of course is not how the election went. Republicans will be well advised to distance themselves as completely as possible from the cry-baby sore loser. Staying latched to Trump is one way to give the Democrats a surprising edge in the 2022 midterm elections.

[pbrower2a]

NC was overrated as a battleground as so was TX

I have my explanation:

1. North Carolina was a real battleground. It was surprising to me that Georgia went to Biden and that North Carolina went to Trump.

2. Texas is becoming increasingly a microcosm of America, at least politically. Texas is in no particular region in America (El Paso might as well be in New Mexico or even Arizona as in any other part of Texas; most of Texas to the north and west of the Dallas-Fort Worth "Metroplex" is really Midwestern (Yes, the state university in Wichita Falls, Texas is called "Midwestern State University") and has more in common with Nebraska than with any other part of Texas; "East Texas" might as well be an extension of the Deep South; the Oil Patch areas have their own regional distinction, and the Lower Rio Grande Valley is culturally an extension of Mexico. Move south of Laredo and Corpus Christi, and you would be well advised to learn Spanish or you could be very lonely. It is hard to place what region of America Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston belong in.

Texas used to be as a whole far poorer and uneducated than America as a whole; that is over. It is now likely ahead of Ohio, and certainly Indiana, and possibly Michigan in that regard. Texas has large minority populations, and even if many in them are assimilating economically, they generally still care about their own poor. That is the difference between the middle-class white vote and the middle-class black and Mexican-American vote in orientation.

3. Florida went for Trump because Trump was able to work on one single issue among Cuban-American and Venezuelan-American voters: disdain for the Castro and Maduro regimes for dictatorship and Marxist socialism. Trump accused Biden of being aligned with Raul Castro and Nicolas Maduro as a socialist. (I see a darker thread: with dictatorial powers in a second term Trump had his ideas of 'liberating' Cuba and Venezuela and establishing plutocratic puppets more like Pinochet than like any liberal democrat). Donald Trump is a 'mirror-image Marxist', the sort of person who sees how Commies depict capitalism as exploitative and dehumanizing... and endorses the exploitation and dehumanization of capitalism at its worst.

I prefer the sorts of anti-communists who simply recognize Marxism-Leninism as an obsolete failure in economics and falling short of the humanistic pretensions of M-L. I prefer Vaclav Havel to Agosto Pinochet -- don't you?

4. Black Lives Matters probably had little effect on the vote on net. Consider where I am on law and order: I prefer rigid law enforcement without police brutality. I have nothing but contempt for lawlessness (and you ought to see my rationale for same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples). Do the crime and do the time, I say. But police brutality of the sort that Black Lives Matters opposes does nothing to make law enforcement more effective. Sure, pull a gun on a cop and expect to die, especially when the cops have bullet-proof vests and can pump a crook with a hail of bullets before the crook can point to the cop's face or neck or do much the same after an ineffective shot to the chest of the cop.

Of course America has plenty of primitives who do not care how many innocent or marginally-culpable (misdemeanor or non-homicidal offenders) get killed by the cops should those people have black or brown skins. Such people are with Trump. 

5. COVID-19 effectively made it far easier to vote, whatever one's position on the political spectrum. It did make political canvassing far more difficult, if not unreasonable. Democrats usually do this far more effectively than Republicans in such states as Minnesota (which went decisively for Biden), Michigan (which barely went for Biden), Iowa (which went decisively for Trump), and Ohio (see also Iowa). Indiana went more decisively R than usual in a Democratic win for the Presidency.

Biden far underperformed late-season polling. In a normal year, the sort of polling that Trump had (and it was atrocious) would have led to a landslide rejection of Trump. The canvassing that makes such possible (and that would have been the difference between Joni Ernst getting defeated and re-elected in Iowa) wasn't possible. President Trump had his reckless super-spreader rallies that in the end will kill more people than any votes that he got for participating in them... in 2022 we may see the consequences. In 2022, COVID-19 will have disappeared, and then only because of medical science which is not a miracle. Democrats will be canvassing again in senatorial, congressional, and gubernatorial races. Donald Trump could well be political poison even in some states that he won.

Canvassing is effective when Democrats do it.

[pbrower2a]

Reuters most recent Job Approval for Donald Trump is 38%.

10 days ago, 47% voted for him.

Good to see the polls are still bullsh**t.

COVID-19 is still killing, and the President himself is trying to steal an election that he lost. Yes, he lost it.  What may be so is that more people can't imagine that he lost.   

[pbrower2a]

The Economist/YouGov weekly tracker, Nov. 21-24, 1500 RV

Trump:

Approve 43 (nc)
Disapprove 55 (+4)

Strongly approve 31 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 47 (+2)


Biden ("Do you approve or disapprove of the way President-Elect Joe Biden is handling the post-election period?"):

Approve 55 (+1)
Disapprove 37 (+3)

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

Exasperation to hope.

[pbrower2a]

Here's Gallup:

These findings are from a postelection survey conducted Nov. 5-19, a period during which Trump's legal team was challenging the results in a number of states. The increase in Biden's favorability between Gallup's final preelection and first postelection readings is driven by independents and Republicans, whose positive ratings of Biden grew from 48% to 55% and 6% to 12%, respectively. Democrats' nearly unanimous positive ratings remained constant.

Trump's slightly lower postelection favorable rating is owed more to Republicans than independents or Democrats. Republicans' rating of the president fell six points to 89%, while it was essentially unchanged among independents and static among Democrats.

Pre- and Postelection Favorable Readings of Presidential Candidates, 2000-2020
% of Americans with a favorable opinion

Final preelection reading   Postelection reading (Nov/Dec)   Change
%
%
pct. pts.
2020   
Joe Biden           49   55   +6
Donald Trump   45   42   -3
2016   
Donald Trump   34   42   +8
Hillary Clinton   43   43     0
2012   
Barack Obama   55   58   +3
Mitt Romney   46   50   +4
2008   
Barack Obama   62   68   +6
John McCain   50   64   +14
2004   
George W. Bush   51   60   +9
John Kerry      52   NA   NA
2000*   
George W. Bush   55   59   +4
Al Gore           56   57   +1

...my comment:

Donald Trump had a big hole to dig himself out of in 2016, and he may have had far less chance than the average President of building credibility for the next election. He had great difficulty developing rapport with people who voted against him in 2016, and even if he went from getting 45.93% of the popular vote to 47.07% of the popular vote in 2020, he ended up with less than enough in 2020.

It is far easier to govern if one begins with a well-filled reservoir of credibility and hope among the people. Lowered expectations may be easier to achieve, but those are inadequate in the long run. Lowered expectations (the Trump Presidency in 2016) become irrelevant when viable alternatives emerge. Consider the clunker vehicle that you tolerate as you hold a crappy, low-paying job while you attend a vocational-technical course at the community college. You go from being an oil-change 'specialist' to a well-paid technician. Do you go to the tote-the-note lot for another car when that clunker becomes unsafe and unreliable or do you go for a better car, one much newer (or even new)? You know the story.

[pbrower2a]

Trump offers many exactly what they want.

[pbrower2a]

Trump is gonna go down in History with Taft and Hoover anyways, as the 3 rd Prez to lose the House and lose reelection anyways. Biden has a good head start on Trump, 2024 Bob Casey is gonna secure the most important battleground state PA

He has his supporters, and his approval and disapproval numbers are very close to the electoral results (if you assume that approval gets votes and disapproval gives votes to the opponent:

 1. Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president? [IF
APPROVE / DISAPPROVE: Is that strongly (approve/disapprove), or only somewhat?]
** President Trump Job Ratings Summary Among Registered Voters **
Approve Disapprove (Don’t know)
Latest (6-9 Dec 20) 47% 52 2
High (4-7 Apr 20) 49% 49 2
Low (22-24 Oct 17) 38% 57 5
Average (2017-Present) 45% 53 3
-------------Approve------------- ----------Disapprove---------- (Don’t know)
TOTAL Strongly Somewhat TOTAL Somewhat Strongly
6-9 Dec 20 47% 30 17 52 8 44 2

(for legibility -- pb)
total approval 47% 30 strongly, 17 somewhat
total disapproval 52% 8 somewhat, 44 strongly

...this is fairly close to the electoral result of 47-51!




17. How do you think history will remember Trump’s presidency? Will he be remembered as:

1. One of the country’s greatest presidents 22%
2. An above average president 16%
3. An average president 10%
4. A below average president 8%
5. One of the country’s worst presidents 42%
6. (Don’t know) 2%


For reference (11-13 Dec 16)

What are your expectations for Donald Trump’s presidency? Do you think he will be:

One of greatest 11%
Above average 25%
Average 16%
Below average 12%
One of worst 31%
(Don’t know) 2%


6-9 Dec 20 22% 16 10 8 42 2
For reference: What are your expectations for Donald Trump’s presidency? Do you think he will be:


11-13 Dec 16 11% 25 16 12 31 4
For reference: What are your expectations for Barack Obama's presidency? Do you think he will be:
One of greatest 19%
A great president 43%
Average 23%
Below average 5%
One of worst 6%
(Don’t know) 4%

after one term in office:

14-16 Dec 13 6% 16 33 16 28 1
One of greatest 6%
A good president 16%
Average 33%
Below average 16%
One of worst 28%
(Don’t know) 1%

Obama:

(one of the greatest/good/average/below average/one of the worst/don't know)
9-11 Dec 12 12% 29 19 14 23 1
14-15 Dec 10 5% 24 33 19 15 3
8-9 Dec 09 13% 30 24 12 16 5
9-10 Dec 08 19% 43 23 5 6 4

https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2020/12/Fox_December-6-9-2020_National_Topline_December-11-Release.pdf

Without question... he is certifiably awful. He did things that he would not get away with without the personality cult. That personality cult came close to getting him re-elected.

Of Presidential nominees who lost both the popular vote and the electoral college in true binary elections:

Trump 20 46.82%
Romney 12  47.15%
McCain 08 45.60%
Kerry 04  48.26%
Dukakis 88  45.65%
Mondale 84 40.56%
Carter 80  41.01%
Ford 76 48.01%

A crude model explains how Trump lost in 2020 after winning in 2016: In 2016, voters over 51 were about 5% more R than D and voters under 35 were about 20% more D than R. The voters over 51 in 2016 were 55 or older in 2016 if they were still voting. The habit of voting continues until one can no longer vote due to death or debility, and about 1.6% of the electorate dies each year (debility is about the same, and people among the debile in one year are usually dead four years later). The younger voters replacing those who die off in the electorate also age from 14 (under 18 are non-voters, obviously) to 35 go from 18 to 39, and over four years that is about a 1.6% shift -- (.25 x 4
x 1.6 = 1.6), which was more than enough to swing Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and (most likely in 2016) Florida. Biden won Arizona and Georgia instead, so with NE-02, that is a wash in the prediction. 

Trump seems to have not solidified any vote and seems to have won nobody over. The electorate changed in its political culture, and what would have been a bare win became a bare loss.

Trump has his supporters, people who believe that he was cheated in the election through massive vote fraud because the results were not as they were on midnight on Election Night. (Votes aren't supposed to be coming in late from places like Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia against him, or so he thought, so they must be forged or fabricated). Go back to 2008 and you will find that it took two days for the votes to come in for a decision on North Carolina and over a week for Missouri. This was without so unusually heavy volume of voting this time, and with a gigantic number of votes by absentee ballot.   

[pbrower2a]

...after the coup attempt. Don't fool yourself: that is exactly what it was.

This pollster (Quinnipiac) has been less sympathetic in its numbers to Trump than just about any. Still, this is the first to follow the treasonable insurrection of January 6:

Following last week's mob attack on the U.S. Capitol during a joint session of Congress to formally certify Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election, nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of voters say democracy in the United States is under threat, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today. Just 21 percent of voters say that democracy in the United States is alive and well.

"When it comes to whether American democracy is under threat, both Republicans and Democrats see a raging five-alarm fire, but clearly disagree on who started it," said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy.



The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts gold standard surveys using random digit dialing with live interviewers calling landlines and cell phones. The Quinnipiac University Poll conducts nationwide surveys and polls in more than twenty states on national and statewide elections, as well as public policy issues.

Visit poll.qu.edu or www.facebook.com/quinnipiacpoll

1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?

Approve 33 (26 strong, 7 somewhat), Disapprove 60  (strong 54, somewhat 4 -- rounding error), don't know/no answer (hereafter DK/NA) 7%

(this is down from 41 approve, 55 disapprove on December 10, 2020)

2. Do you believe there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, or not?

Yes. so believe -- 37%; no 58%; DK/NA 5%... no real change from December

3. As president, do you think that Joe Biden will be able to unite the country after he takes office, or do you expect partisan divisions to remain the same as they are today?

Yes (can unify) 31%; no (expect divisions) 56%; DK/NA 14%

 
4. Which comes closer to your point of view: democracy in the United States is alive and well or democracy in the United States is under threat?


alive and well 21% under threat 74% DK/NA 5%


5. Do you think that extremism is a big problem in the United States, or don't you think so?

yes (big problem 81%) no 12% DK/NA7%

6. Do you think that - the Republican members of Congress who tried to stop the formal certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election were undermining democracy or protecting democracy?

undermining 58% protecting 34% don't know/no answer 8%

7. Do you think that - President Trump is undermining democracy or protecting democracy?

60% undermining 34% protecting 6% DK/NA


8. Do you think that - the individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th were undermining democracy or protecting democracy?

undermining 90% protecting 10% DK/NA 10%


9. Do you think that President Trump should resign as president, or don't you think so?

yes/resign 53% no 43% DK/NA 4%

10. Do you think that President Trump should be removed from office, or don't you think so?

yes/remove 52%  no 45% DK/NA 3%


11. Do you think that President Trump is mentally stable, or not?

yes/stable 45% no 38%. DK/NA 7%


12. Do you consider what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th a coup attempt, or not?

yes/coup 47 no 43 DK/NA 10


13. Do you want to see the individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th held accountable for their actions, or not?

91% yes/hold responsible 6% no 3% DK/NA

(I'm not ordinarily showing partisan or other demographic breakdowns, as those are in the source... but the split is 89-8-3 among Republicans, 99-1-0 among Democrats, and 89-9-2 among Independents... it does not look good and it probably never will look good from hereon.

14. Do you hold President Trump responsible for the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, or not?

56% yes/responsible 42% no DK/NA 3%

15. Do you think that law enforcement officials did everything they could to prevent the initial storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, or don't you think so?

19% yes/they did  71% no 10% DK/NA

16. How concerned are you about the safety of elected officials in the United States: very concerned, somewhat concerned, not so concerned, or not concerned at all?

35% very concerned
35% somewhat concerned
13% not so concerned
16% not concerned at all

2% DK/NA

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3686

[pbrower2a]

Hobby School of Public Affairs, University of Houston

https://uh.edu/hobby/tx2021/attitudes.pdf

TEXAS

This may be water over the dam or under the bridge, but at this point if Trump were up for election (he isn't, of course) he would lose. It's favorability, but with these numbers the difference between approval and favorability cannot mean that much when one has politicians in contrast. This of course follows the insane events at the US Capitol about a month ago. Texas is increasingly becoming a microcosm of America in most aspects of life, although it is still decidedly more Republican than the US as a whole.

Trump did win the state decisively, although less decisively than any Republican nominee since Dole in 1996.

....................VF  SF N SU VUDK Joe Biden       26 15 11 5 37 6 Kamala Harris 25 14   8 6 37 10 Donald Trump 29 10   5 5 46 5

VF very favorable
SF somewhat favorable
N  (neutral) neither favorable nor unfavorable
SU slightly unfavorable
VU very unfavorable
DK don't know/no response

Biden is at 41-43, but Trump is at 39-51 in favorability. To be sure, that is not approval, but I can see no way of seeing Biden more positively than Trump among Texas voters for now.