Trump approval ratings thread 1.3

[The Mikado]

Worth keeping in mind, in broad outline:

2012: Obama gets ~66 million votes to Romney's ~61 million votes. Obama carries every swing state except NC.
2016: Clinton gets ~66 million votes to Trump's ~63 million votes. Trump carries most of the swing states, some by whopping margins like Ohio, but most by 1-2 points. Only swing state he doesn't carry is NH, narrowly, by under half a %.

Trump's support is a castle of sand with numerous vulnerabilities, and even a minor Dem overperformance of Clinton would put him in serious trouble in any number of physical areas. He won Florida by 1.2%, for example, pretty much solely on the basis of a massive surge of turnout and swamping Romney's totals in GOP parts of the state even as Clinton overperformed Obama elsewhere. A relatively minor cut to the motivation of Trump's base in FL puts him under water there, and FL is huge and massively important.

Trump won Michigan by 0.2% of the vote in an election where Michigan was (obviously wrongly) considered a safe D state with a large third party vote, a lot of whom wouldn't have voted third party in a state that was going to be close. Trump coupled a real surge vs Romney in rural MI with low Dem turnout in that state and high Johnson votes to produce a perfect storm to win that state by the narrowest of margins. With the Democratic Party taking MI seriously and voters knowing that it isn't safe to vote third party there, I think Trump will have a tricky time trying to hold MI, even if his heightened performance in rural MI stays true in 2020. He won MI 47.2 to 47.0. I could easily see a scenario where he loses it 49-48, where he doesn't lose any support at all and even marginally improves from 2016.

[Person Man]

According to 538, his net approvals are 7 points lower than any of the other  post-WW2 presidents for this point in the cycle.

Maybe people will just give up and let him do what he wants. Maybe were in a period of perpetual prosperity. Absent those things, he is at a unique  disadvantage at this time.

Well Trump got 306 EV's with 46.1% of the NPV. Interpolating this calculus with uniform swing, his tipping point in the NPV would have been around 45.3%. With his approval at 43.7% right now, he would have to outdo it by 1.6%. That's really not a tall order for an incumbent, since I'd assume there would be many more of his detractors voting FOR him than there would be fans of his voting AGAINST him (why on Earth would you vote against an incumbent president that you like?).

I guess the structure of the EC could wildly swing toward the Dems in the same fashion that it swung toward the Republicans from 2012 to 2016, but I really don't see it. The Dems today seem intent on riling up their base rather than crossing the aisle, which will make blue states bluer but really won't help matters in the Rust Belt and FL.

That is the point I try to make on here. Five out of the last six presidents had approval ratings in Year 2 that were the opposite of what would eventually happen in the next election, but for some reason Atlas thinks that Trump being at 44% in 2018 (higher than Clinton 1994 and Reagan 1982, mind you) is a smoke signal for a Dem landslide in 2020.

The idea is made even more ludicrous in wake of the fact that Trump already outdid his favorability/approval numbers by 7+ points in the NPV in 2016. If a presidential election were held today, there's no reason to believe he wouldn't get 47-48% of the NPV at the minimum. That may or may not be enough to win, but this constant caterwauling about a 1996/2008 style Dem victory in 2020 seems asinine at this point.

Since we're calling out the Atlas hivemind here, when are people going to stop acting like Trump over-performing his favorables against the second most unpopular presidential candidate in modern history is some big achievement, and that it means he should easily be able to hold his own against any other candidate?

It just seems like this won't die no matter how obvious the reason is, and no matter how often someone points it out. Someone says Trump's unpopularity is a big liability, and then someone else says "but he won in 2016 despite being unpopular", completely ignoring the fact that Clinton was almost as unpopular as him. If you honestly think the election is going to play out the same way against a candidate that is more popular than unpopular, then there is no point in even discussing this anymore.

I understand that Hillary was unpopular...I'm not blind to the facts. But the assumption that the Dems are going to nominate this massively popular, depolarizing figure in 2020 is equally ridiculous. The election is 29 months away and the front-runners are two 80-year-old white men, one of whom can't keep his hands to himself and the other being an avowed socialist.

Candidates look good now because it is 2018, just as Hillary's favorables were comfortably above water in the summer of 2014. You may love Trump or hate him, but the man is an attritional campaigner. You say you don't understand why I think he will outperform his approvals again, but I don't understand why you think the Dems can find some inevitable colossus in two short years.

This all of course assumes the vote won't be split again. His disapprovals are around 52 or 53 percent. He would need a third party challenger to win at least half what they did before and have a the tipping point be 3 points to the right again.

Of course things looked tall with Bush losing the PV and only winning because a split in the left but then what was supposed to be a narrow but comfortable win turned to a narrow but decisive loss when the Nader voters just stayed home and Bush's ability to enhance incumbency had it so for every moderate voter turned off by his lurch to the hard-right, two more Gore voters crossed over out of fear.

[twenty42]

I understand that Hillary was unpopular...I'm not blind to the facts. But the assumption that the Dems are going to nominate this massively popular, depolarizing figure in 2020 is equally ridiculous. The election is 29 months away and the front-runners are two 80-year-old white men, one of whom can't keep his hands to himself and the other being an avowed socialist.

Candidates look good now because it is 2018, just as Hillary's favorables were comfortably above water in the summer of 2014. You may love Trump or hate him, but the man is an attritional campaigner. You say you don't understand why I think he will outperform his approvals again, but I don't understand why you think the Dems can find some inevitable colossus in two short years.

I don't think it's a guaranteed loss or even a landslide - who knows until we know who the Democrat is (and I don't think they are guaranteed to be massively popular either), but Trump only got 46.1% of the vote for gods sakes. That is terrible. In any other election where 3rd party votes were more "normal", as in <= 1.5%, Trump probably would have lost in a way not too dissimilar from 2008's margin - maybe 1 point less or so.

Considering that such a comfortable portion of the country was against Trump even in 2016, the Democrat in 2020 doesn't even need to make inroads into his base to beat him soundly. All they have to do is consolidate the 2016 anti-Trump vote, and they don't need to be the next Obama to do that. Republicans absolutely should be worried about 2020 - big league. Their national coalition was already weak, and Trump is just another liability on top of that.

Yep, as Virginia pointed out, 46.1% is only slightly better than McCain in 2008 and worse than Romney in 2012.

I seem to remember Bill Clinton getting 370 EV's out of 43% of the NPV. Say what you want, but winning a presidential election despite 57% of voters voting against you was a raw miscarriage of democracy...much more so than 2000 or 2016. I'll be creating a thread on this soon.

Moreover, only three out of the last seven presidential elections have seen a candidate win a majority, so I'm not sure where your argument that 1.5% is a "normal" third-party performance comes from.

Fair or not, a candidate's electoral coalition matters more so than their % of the NPV. You argue that 46.1% is "terrible," but Hillary's 48.2% only netted her 232 EV's. There are elections such as 2008 where NPV percentages neatly align with the electoral map, but they are more the exception than the rule.

[forgotten manatee]

[The Dems today seem intent on riling up their base rather than crossing the aisle, which will make blue states bluer but really won't help matters in the Rust Belt and FL.

Written apparently without irony..

[The Mikado]

I seem to remember Bill Clinton getting 370 EV's out of 43% of the NPV. Say what you want, but winning a presidential election despite 57% of voters voting against you was a raw miscarriage of democracy...much more so than 2000 or 2016. I'll be creating a thread on this soon.

Hey, if you're proposing a national top-two style runoff Presidential election like France does, I'm all for that and think it's the most reasonable way of doing a Presidential election. But Constitutional Amendments are hard.

[twenty42]

I seem to remember Bill Clinton getting 370 EV's out of 43% of the NPV. Say what you want, but winning a presidential election despite 57% of voters voting against you was a raw miscarriage of democracy...much more so than 2000 or 2016. I'll be creating a thread on this soon.

Hey, if you're proposing a national top-two style runoff Presidential election like France does, I'm all for that and think it's the most reasonable way of doing a Presidential election. But Constitutional Amendments are hard.

I'm just saying...people talk about 2000 and 2016 as if they were colossal disgraces to democracy, yet Bill Clinton underperformed Wendell freakin' Wilkie in the NPV but you never hear a word about it. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

[forgotten manatee]

I seem to remember Bill Clinton getting 370 EV's out of 43% of the NPV. Say what you want, but winning a presidential election despite 57% of voters voting against you was a raw miscarriage of democracy...much more so than 2000 or 2016. I'll be creating a thread on this soon.

Hey, if you're proposing a national top-two style runoff Presidential election like France does, I'm all for that and think it's the most reasonable way of doing a Presidential election. But Constitutional Amendments are hard.

I'm just saying...people talk about 2000 and 2016 as if they were colossal disgraces to democracy, yet Bill Clinton underperformed Wendell freakin' Wilkie in the NPV but you never hear a word about it. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Yeah and Nixon basically did the same thing in 68. Unfortunately that is what happens when there is a decently popular third party candidate on the ballot. The reason people complain about 2000 is because had Florida been offered a fair recount, its likely Gore would have prevailed, and the reason people complain about 2016 because, well, look what happened. A madman racist who is totally unfit for public office prevailed despite losing the popular vote by three million votes, and possibly because of outside help from a malign foreign power. I think it is false equivalence to compare either instance to Clinton's victories, or Nixon's, or to other elections.

[Person Man]

I seem to remember Bill Clinton getting 370 EV's out of 43% of the NPV. Say what you want, but winning a presidential election despite 57% of voters voting against you was a raw miscarriage of democracy...much more so than 2000 or 2016. I'll be creating a thread on this soon.

Hey, if you're proposing a national top-two style runoff Presidential election like France does, I'm all for that and think it's the most reasonable way of doing a Presidential election. But Constitutional Amendments are hard.

I'm just saying...people talk about 2000 and 2016 as if they were colossal disgraces to democracy, yet Bill Clinton underperformed Wendell freakin' Wilkie in the NPV but you never hear a word about it. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Yeah and Nixon basically did the same thing in 68. Unfortunately that is what happens when there is a decently popular third party candidate on the ballot. The reason people complain about 2000 is because had Florida been offered a fair recount, its likely Gore would have prevailed, and the reason people complain about 2016 because, well, look what happened. A madman racist who is totally unfit for public office prevailed despite losing the popular vote by three million votes, and possibly because of outside help from a malign foreign power. I think it is false equivalence to compare either instance to Clinton's victories, or Nixon's, or to other elections.

Especially because Bill was the candidate with the most votes.

[twenty42]

I seem to remember Bill Clinton getting 370 EV's out of 43% of the NPV. Say what you want, but winning a presidential election despite 57% of voters voting against you was a raw miscarriage of democracy...much more so than 2000 or 2016. I'll be creating a thread on this soon.

Hey, if you're proposing a national top-two style runoff Presidential election like France does, I'm all for that and think it's the most reasonable way of doing a Presidential election. But Constitutional Amendments are hard.

I'm just saying...people talk about 2000 and 2016 as if they were colossal disgraces to democracy, yet Bill Clinton underperformed Wendell freakin' Wilkie in the NPV but you never hear a word about it. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Yeah and Nixon basically did the same thing in 68. Unfortunately that is what happens when there is a decently popular third party candidate on the ballot. The reason people complain about 2000 is because had Florida been offered a fair recount, its likely Gore would have prevailed, and the reason people complain about 2016 because, well, look what happened. A madman racist who is totally unfit for public office prevailed despite losing the popular vote by three million votes, and possibly because of outside help from a malign foreign power. I think it is false equivalence to compare either instance to Clinton's victories, or Nixon's, or to other elections.

Gore and Hillary both knew the rules going in...winning the NPV doesn't put the check mark next to your name. But you can't bemoan 2000 and 2016 while being okay with 1968 and 1992. The only true democratic way to elect a president would be to have a 50% requirement, which would require a runoff in the case of a plurality. This would kill two birds with one stone, as third parties would cease to exist in a system where their only purpose would be to invalidate elections.

[Person Man]

I seem to remember Bill Clinton getting 370 EV's out of 43% of the NPV. Say what you want, but winning a presidential election despite 57% of voters voting against you was a raw miscarriage of democracy...much more so than 2000 or 2016. I'll be creating a thread on this soon.

Hey, if you're proposing a national top-two style runoff Presidential election like France does, I'm all for that and think it's the most reasonable way of doing a Presidential election. But Constitutional Amendments are hard.

I'm just saying...people talk about 2000 and 2016 as if they were colossal disgraces to democracy, yet Bill Clinton underperformed Wendell freakin' Wilkie in the NPV but you never hear a word about it. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Yeah and Nixon basically did the same thing in 68. Unfortunately that is what happens when there is a decently popular third party candidate on the ballot. The reason people complain about 2000 is because had Florida been offered a fair recount, its likely Gore would have prevailed, and the reason people complain about 2016 because, well, look what happened. A madman racist who is totally unfit for public office prevailed despite losing the popular vote by three million votes, and possibly because of outside help from a malign foreign power. I think it is false equivalence to compare either instance to Clinton's victories, or Nixon's, or to other elections.

Gore and Hillary both knew the rules going in...winning the NPV doesn't put the check mark next to your name. But you can't bemoan 2000 and 2016 while being okay with 1968 and 1992. The only true democratic way to elect a president would be to have a 50% requirement, which would require a runoff in the case of a plurality. This would kill two birds with one stone, as third parties would cease to exist in a system where their only purpose would be to invalidate elections.

Yeah. I have a problem with what happened in 1968. Not what happened in 1992. Clinton won by a substantial margin.
Yeah. It's great but no one who matters will back it barring some huge calamity that makes it neccesary.

[pbrower2a]

Worth keeping in mind, in broad outline:

2012: Obama gets ~66 million votes to Romney's ~61 million votes. Obama carries every swing state except NC.
2016: Clinton gets ~66 million votes to Trump's ~63 million votes. Trump carries most of the swing states, some by whopping margins like Ohio, but most by 1-2 points. Only swing state he doesn't carry is NH, narrowly, by under half a %.

Trump's support is a castle of sand with numerous vulnerabilities, and even a minor Dem overperformance of Clinton would put him in serious trouble in any number of physical areas. He won Florida by 1.2%, for example, pretty much solely on the basis of a massive surge of turnout and swamping Romney's totals in GOP parts of the state even as Clinton overperformed Obama elsewhere. A relatively minor cut to the motivation of Trump's base in FL puts him under water there, and FL is huge and massively important.

I can think of only one constituency who will support him more in 2020 than in 2016: moneyed elites who distrusted his demagoguery. He has done well for them through tax cuts and relaxation of regulation. It's a small number of voters, but it has the great asset to any politician: huge amounts of cash that it can lavish on right-wing politicians of all kinds. Such people may be more important than their numbers would suggest -- unless the numbers have dollar signs attached. Money matters greatly in our political system, but it isn't everything.

Donald Trump never promised to ravage the environment -- and there are plenty of environment voters. A conservative politician can only go so far with them on making promises to create better opportunities so that they can afford more gear and the gas for getting to the recreational sites -- but take away or degrade those sites, and you lose 'conservation' voters. He did not promise deteriorating relations with just about every democratic society on Earth, but if you debase diplomatic relations with Germany and the UK for no obvious reason I have serious questions about you.

Farmers and ranchers are typically reliable, complacent Republican voters -- until you hit them in the pocketbook. If the trade wars go as some fear, it could be farmers and ranchers who get hurt worst. Although farmers and ranchers are not a majority in any state, they are enough to offset the relatively liberal vote in such places as Fargo, Bismarck, Sioux Falls, Omaha, and Lincoln. Add farmers to a liberal bloc in such states as Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,  and things get scary for Republicans in those states. Farmers will need huge crop subsidies just to offset lower commodity prices and higher fuel price, and they won't get those fast enough to steam at Trump. (I'm calling this one now). 

Americans have shown that they hate any semblance of child abuse -- ever and to anyone. Heck, gays and lesbians got same-sex marriage in part because they excoriated sexual abuse of children. But you get the "orchestra without a conductor", and it isn't the Prague Chamber Orchestra that I would love to see in concert. Oh, the children are illegal aliens? Do you think that someone would get away with abuse of any kind of children who happen to be illegal aliens? If an illegal alien does that, thenuch is good for swift deportation after any prison term. Naturalized citizen? Denaturalization followed by swift deportation after any prison term. US citizen by birth? It's too bad that we can't deport those creeps.

Maybe illegal aliens must be deported, but children who happen to be illegal aliens have a right to not be abused. This looks so far like the one thing for which President Trump will be most remembered in 2020 -- the loudly-paternalistic leader neglectful about the consequences of his administrative policies upon helpless children.

 Whatever their political beliefs, Americans are for integrity in government, and the President has picked some doozies as Cabinet secretaries and other high officials. To be sure, just about every visionary seems at first to be a fanatic, but his choices seem to either be fanatics devoid of vision -- or out-and-out shysters.

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Democrats may make different mistakes in 2020, but they won't assume Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin safe until they are so locked up that Donald Trump's campaign can't make a big ad buy in those states. Likewise Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire,  or Virginia. As America de-industrializes, states like Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin become more rural and have agriculture as a bigger share of their economies. But I predict that Donald Trump's tariffs will hurt farmers in those states and cause many to vote Democratic for the first times in their lives. (By 2020 one would have to be 77 to have voted for LBJ over Barry Goldwater).

So don't neglect farm-and-ranch issues, Democrats. The most progressive time for America in economics happened after this change in American political life:


this (Hoover 58.22%, 444 electoral votes, Smith 40.79%, 87 electoral votes)




to this (FDR 57.41%, 472 electoral votes, Hoover 39.75%, 59 electoral votes)



this (Hoover 58.22%, 444 electoral votes, Smith 40/79%, 87 electoral votes)

 

[pbrower2a]

I seem to remember Bill Clinton getting 370 EV's out of 43% of the NPV. Say what you want, but winning a presidential election despite 57% of voters voting against you was a raw miscarriage of democracy...much more so than 2000 or 2016. I'll be creating a thread on this soon.

Hey, if you're proposing a national top-two style runoff Presidential election like France does, I'm all for that and think it's the most reasonable way of doing a Presidential election. But Constitutional Amendments are hard.

I'm just saying...people talk about 2000 and 2016 as if they were colossal disgraces to democracy, yet Bill Clinton underperformed Wendell freakin' Wilkie in the NPV but you never hear a word about it. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Have you forgotten that there was a Presidential candidate by the name of Ross Perot who got nearly 19% of the popular vote that year? Subtract the Perot vote, and 43% of 81% is 53% of the rest, which is close to what Obama got in 2008, and Obama won 365 electoral votes in 2008, which is hard to distinguish from 370 -- and with a very different electoral map.

Oh, did anyone notice that Donald Trump won only a half-percent more in the share of the popular vote in 2016 than did Mike Dukakis in 1988? Dukakis ended up with only 111 electoral votes that year. Just saying...

[twenty42]

I seem to remember Bill Clinton getting 370 EV's out of 43% of the NPV. Say what you want, but winning a presidential election despite 57% of voters voting against you was a raw miscarriage of democracy...much more so than 2000 or 2016. I'll be creating a thread on this soon.

Hey, if you're proposing a national top-two style runoff Presidential election like France does, I'm all for that and think it's the most reasonable way of doing a Presidential election. But Constitutional Amendments are hard.

I'm just saying...people talk about 2000 and 2016 as if they were colossal disgraces to democracy, yet Bill Clinton underperformed Wendell freakin' Wilkie in the NPV but you never hear a word about it. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Have you forgotten that there was a Presidential candidate by the name of Ross Perot who got nearly 19% of the popular vote that year? Subtract the Perot vote, and 43% of 81% is 53% of the rest, which is close to what Obama got in 2008, and Obama won 365 electoral votes in 2008, which is hard to distinguish from 370 -- and with a very different electoral map.

You don't subtract votes. 57% of 1992 voters voted AGAINST Clinton, which means there were more unhappy people (per capita) on 11/4/92 than there were on 12/14/00 or 11/9/16. You seem to be equivocating Perot votes with abstention, but that isn't how it works. If that 19% subset didn't want to vote in the election, they didn't have to. But the fact is that Perot voters voted against Clinton just as much as Bush voters did.

Oh, did anyone notice that Donald Trump won only a half-percent more in the share of the popular vote in 2016 than did Mike Dukakis in 1988? Dukakis ended up with only 111 electoral votes that year. Just saying...

You're confusing cause and effect here. Dukakis' 45.6% translated into 111 EV's because third parties only got 1% in 1988. To compare an election where third party won 1% to an election where third party won 5.7% is going to create syllogistic fallacies, which proves my original point. Of course 45.6% is going to be a bloodbath when the remaining 54.4% is going mostly to one candidate, but then four years later 43% was enough to generate an electoral landslide simply because the remaining 57% split a certain way.

If you want to argue that there shouldn't be more dissatisfied voters than satisfied voters on Wednesday morning, then you can't be permissive of 1968/1992 situations. Even though these elections didn't generate PV/EV splits, they were still problematic in the same way.

[BudgieForce]

The reason third party candidates did so well in 2016 was due to both Hillary and Trumps massive unpopularity. If Democrats nominate someone with decent favorables, that wont happen again, at least not to such an extent.

[twenty42]

The reason third party candidates did so well in 2016 was due to both Hillary and Trumps massive unpopularity. If Democrats nominate someone with decent favorables, that wont happen again, at least not to such an extent.

Like I said above, easier said than done. It’s been 42 years since a Democrat not named Obama won a majority at the presidential level. Democrats are not going to have an easy path to 270 if Trump is getting 47-48% in the NPV.

[forgotten manatee]

The reason third party candidates did so well in 2016 was due to both Hillary and Trumps massive unpopularity. If Democrats nominate someone with decent favorables, that wont happen again, at least not to such an extent.

Like I said above, easier said than done. It’s been 42 years since a Democrat not named Obama four years since Democrats last won an outright majority at the presidential level. Democrats are not going to have an easy path to 270 if Trump is getting 47-48% in the NPVIt has not been long enough to draw any firm conclusions without resorting to concern trolling or being an outright partisan hack.

Fixed that for you. You remind me of Sean Trende, and I don't mean that in a good way.

[twenty42]

The reason third party candidates did so well in 2016 was due to both Hillary and Trumps massive unpopularity. If Democrats nominate someone with decent favorables, that wont happen again, at least not to such an extent.

Like I said above, easier said than done. It’s been 42 years since a Democrat not named Obama four years since Democrats last won an outright majority at the presidential level. Democrats are not going to have an easy path to 270 if Trump is getting 47-48% in the NPVIt has not been long enough to draw any firm conclusions without resorting to concern trolling or being an outright partisan hack.

Fixed that for you. You remind me of Sean Trende, and I don't mean that in a good way.

80% of this forum thinks that every presidential election from this point on will be a Democratic landslide, yet I’m a partisan hack for believing 2020 will be close (just like four out of the last five presidential elections were).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Beyond 2020, who knows, but a mere half a percent uniform swing would be enuf to dump Trump.  Given Trump's unpopularity and moreover his total disinterest in going beyond his base, it's hard to see how the Democrats could lose in 2020 with a candidate that is even only slightly less polarizing than Clinton.  There were many factors needed for Trump to win in 2016.  One of those was overconfidence.  I don't think the Dems will make that mistake again for a while.

(TBF, given the ways the polls looked I don't fault Clinton too much.  If she was going to be able to accomplish anything, she needed to get a Democratic-controlled Senate  If she had won but the GOP had kept the Senate, we might well still have a vacancy on the Supreme Court.  So spending some political capital on taking the Senate wasn't a bad idea, the campaign just neglected to do enuf defense.)

[Virginiá]

Like I said above, easier said than done. It’s been 42 years since a Democrat not named Obama won a majority at the presidential level. Democrats are not going to have an easy path to 270 if Trump is getting 47-48% in the NPV.

I really have never liked this particular statistic. Bill Clinton won two comfortable victories, and his reelection was a semi-landslide (a modern one, in hindsight). It was also just shy of a majority. He went on to be a popular president too. So I don't really think the point you're making is well served by that stat.

Also, part of the arguments we are making in this debate is that it won't be easy for Trump to get 47-48% in the popular vote to begin with. His challenges in that quest are easily more difficult than it is for Democrats to find a reasonable candidate to carry them to the White House. I think there are several candidates in the field right now who could do that, even if they aren't all darlings of the progressive faction.

I don't really have anything left to add, so I'll leave you to it.

[pbrower2a]

The reason third party candidates did so well in 2016 was due to both Hillary and Trumps massive unpopularity. If Democrats nominate someone with decent favorables, that wont happen again, at least not to such an extent.

Like I said above, easier said than done. It’s been 42 years since a Democrat not named Obama won a majority at the presidential level. Democrats are not going to have an easy path to 270 if Trump is getting 47-48% in the NPV.

The Presidency is decided in the Electoral College, and getting the right votes matters more than getting a plurality of the vote. When the spread in the vote between the top two candidates, getting the 'right' votes instead of winning the plurality is practically impossible.

The 2016 Presidential election was a freak, and many Americans are stuck with a President that they despise for moral reasons other than positions on issues. (This allows differences on such polarizing issues as abortion, 'gun rights', homosexuality, school prayer, and the teaching of evolution -- or on economic priorities as shown in labor law or the budgetary process).

So if Dubya was certifiably an awful President who got away early with bad policies early that imploded late in his Presidency, those of Donald Trump are proving harmful early. If you think Barack Obama was polarizing for what he is, Donald Trump is polarizing for what he does.

In any event, many are looking at the current Presidency and assessing whether we think he can and will be re-elected -- or how he can be re-elected. That we have had three consecutive two-term Presidents says something about the likelihood of Donald Trump being re-elected; if he is at least mediocre or is lucky enough that his bad policies don't blow up on us before November 2020, then he wins re-election. That we have not had a President die in office in nearly 55 years  does not mean that we will not have one who becomes as unfit to serve as Ronald Reagan was toward the end of his term. (Donald Trump is that old). That we have not had a President resign in disgrace since 1974 does not mean that he is exempt.

On the other hand, one looks at the Gallup approval polls for Presidents beginning with Truman and going through Trump so far, and we see that at similar stages of their Presidencies, Donald Trump is behind them all. But Reagan was not so far ahead, and got re-elected in a landslide? OK, so Reagan and Trump are both similar in age and are both Republicans. But -- Reagan got the nickname "the Great Communicator", and except for Obama, no subsequent President even comes close to Reagan as such. Reagan could calm public opinion, and could back off a trial balloon when the trial balloon failed. Reagan followed a troubled Presidency* which had failed to solve stagflation and had the bad luck of misjudging a situation in Iran -- and Reagan solved the problem. Trump follows a better-than-average President and has made a mess of what was already there. Donald Trump is not another Ronald Reagan. Obama is a better analogue for Reagan despite obvious dissimilarities, following an even more-failed Presidency.

OK, so only 44 people have been President (Cleveland was President in non-consecutive terms), and what applies to nineteenth-century Presidents  does not generally apply today. If you wonder why I project him to do badly in a bid for re-election even if his approval ratings are in the range (at times as high as 45%) it is something unique to American Presidents: pervasive scandals and a selection of polarizing figures (a euphemism for 'fanatics') that will solidify opposition to him. American voters do not take well to scandals involving abuse of power or outright corruption.

It is possible for an incumbent politician to lose a re-election bid during a wave year favoring his Party (think of Governor Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania in 2014), even in a state (Governor Sean Parnell in Alaska in 2014) or district (Rep. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, LA-02, but the district is mostly New Orleans, in 2008) if one has scandals of corruption or other abuse of power. Americans understand the concepts of 'corruption' and 'abuse of power' about as well as they understand pain in the pocketbook. Americans can vote for politicians who pander to the most rapacious plutocrats (just look at the current Congress) so long as those promise that such will bring unprecedented prosperity and continue to vote for them when the prosperity goes exclusively to those plutocrats so long as we don't get a severe economic downturn.

We tolerate much in the name of prosperity, but we do not tolerate politicians covering up for sexual abuse of minors involving people connected to a once-highly-regarded head coach of a state college football team, and we don't tolerate bribery or self-dealing. I doubt that President Trump is callow enough to have a freezer stuffed with cash from kickbacks, but it is probably wise to show a receipt from a Trump hotel before doing business with his administration. There have been some sleazy dealings in this Administration, and the "orchestra without a conductor" will surely dog this Administration.

Donald Trump won by appealing to the worst in human nature among nearly half of American voters, and those vices will remain. But most vices end up hurting those who fall for them. It might not be enough for a Democrat to appeal to the best in human nature against an incumbent President who acquiesces in the vices of most Americans. Just think of how well Walter Mondale did against Ronald Reagan. But Donald Trump is not Ronald Reagan.

President Trump can be defeated two ways: by the Democrat winning a decisive majority without simply running up the vote percentages in California, Illinois, Maryland, and New York, or by facing a challenge from someone from the conservative side of the political spectrum -- someone who is closer to the values of George Will of Steve Schmidt, neither of whom has any respect for this President.

It is hard to measure the effects of corruption against  bad economic conditions under Hoover or the combination of stagflation and an embassy takeover in Tehran under Carter. We have yet to fully assess the effects of the President's muddled tariffs (stagflation?) upon economic activity.

*Ronald Reagan defeated stagflation by successful reducing the expectations of most Americans.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Arizona: Emerson, June 21-22, 650 registered voters

Approve 43
Disapprove 49

[pbrower2a]

Arizona: Emerson, June 21-22, 650 registered voters

Approve 43
Disapprove 49

Texas, Texas Tribune: 47-44

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/25/ted-cruz-beto-orourke-poll-5-points-texas-senate-race-uttt/
 

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

States and districts hard to see:

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

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

100-Disapproval

55% or higher dark blue
50% to 54% or higher but not tied medium blue
50% or higher but positive pale blue

ties white

45% or higher and negative pale red
40% to 44% medium red
under 40% deep red

States and districts hard to see:

CT 41
DC 20
DE 43
HI 36
NH 49
NJ 37
RI 30
NE-01 55
NE-02 46
NE-03 66
RI 30
VT 36


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


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

[Person Man]

I can buy that Trump has settled around the low 40s.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Gallup weekly

Approve 41 (-4)
Disapprove 55 (+5)

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Gallup weekly

Approve 41 (-4)
Disapprove 55 (+5)

There she is