March 6: Trump Job Approval Again Underwater, Where It Belongs
As an inveterate poll-watcher, I have been waiting for the moment when Donald Trump’s job approval numbers went underwater, his accustomed position for nearly all of his presidential career. It arrived around the time he made his speech to Congress, as I noted at New York:
Even as he was delivering the most partisan address to Congress maybe ever, Donald Trump’s public support seemed to be regularly eroding. An updated FiveThirtyEight average of Trump’s approval ratings on March 4 (released just as news broke that ABC was shutting down the revered data site) showed him going underwater for the first time since reoccupying the White House, with 47.6 percent approval and 47.9 percent disapproval. That puts Trump back in the same territory of public opinion he occupied during his first term as president, where (per Gallup) he never achieved more than 50 percent job approval, and averaged a mere 41 percent.
Perhaps Trump will get lucky and conditions in the country will improve enough to validate his agenda, but it’s more likely that the same sour public climate that overwhelmed Joe Biden will now afflict his predecessor and successor.
The Reuters/Ipsos survey that pushed Trump’s numbers into negative territory showed a mood very different from the 47th president’s boasts about a new “golden age” for our country:
“Thirty-four percent of Americans say that the country is headed in the right direction, compared to 49% who say it is off on the wrong track. When it comes to several specific issues, Americans are more likely to say things are off on the wrong track than going in the right direction: cost of living (22% right direction / 60% wrong track), the national economy (31% right direction / 51% wrong track), national politics (33% right direction / 50% wrong track), American foreign policy (33% right direction / 49% wrong track), and employment and jobs (33% right direction / 47% wrong track).”
So all the hype about Trump being a popular president who was in the midst of engineering a major realignment of the American electorate is already looking more than a bit hollow. Trump has a solid Republican base of support and a solid Democratic opposition, with independents currently leaning towards the Democratic Party on most issues. Perhaps Trump’s agenda will gain momentum and support, but since he’s not trying to reach out beyond his party’s base at all, he’s going to need a lift from Americans who only voted for him in 2024 as the lesser of evils and may not vote in the 2026 midterms at all.
At present Trump has lost whatever presidential “honeymoon” he initially enjoyed after his return to the White House, and needs to find new converts to return to genuine popularity. He’s not off to a great start.
Look more closely at the Pew polls (pg 17-18), when they divide groups among certain bush/certain kerry and leaning bush/leaning kerry. Try this: first assume that only those who are “certain” about their choice will vote november and that their totals will be 100%. Next assume only those “certain” or “leaning” will show up in november (=100%) and no one who is now undecided would. In almost every group, Bush’s support among “certain” voters is worse than among “certain” + “leaning” voters. This tells me that those who will vote for Kerry are more determined than those who will vote for Bush. It also says that more of Bush’s numbers at this stage rely on soft support! It seems Bush is only going to have more and more trouble as more of his support is disheartened by his incompetence and more Americans line up behind Kerry, whom they will increasingly see as the better alternative. And that’s even before undecideds will break overwhelmingly for the challenger Kerry.
Bush is a lame duck, dead in the water! As Andrew Kohut’s NYTimes op-ed reassures us: Kerry is in a better position than any challenger in history against an elected incumbent (even though Bush clearly was not elected). Now let’s work on registering and mobilizing voters so we can give President Kerry the Democratic Congress he deserves!
I’m on Zogby’s email list for taking online polls. On the last few, I’ve stopped responding when I reached this question on the first page:
“In which party are you either registered to vote or do you consider yourself to be a member …
Democrat
Republican
Independent
Libertarian
Constitution
Green
Natural Law
Reform
Other
Not sure
Refused”
I encourage others to join me in sending an email to marc@zogby.com asking why they don’t have the DemocratIC party listed.
Thanks.