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.
Re: Florida
I’ve been making veteran-to-veteran calls for the Kerry/Edwards campaign in Palm Beach county and the independents and non-affiliated voters that I’ve reached have broken about 3-1 for Kerry.
The interesting thing is that the undecided voters are a bit on the testy side, which leads me to beleive that they are like my father: Republican-leaning, but they don’t want to vote for either Bush or Kerry. When pressed about their misgivings about Kerry, they cough up discredited republican smears. The bottom line seems to be that they don’t like Bush and Kerry hasn’t disspelled the smears (but there were so many, how could you possibly effectively cover them all?).
Just my thoughts, your mileage may vary.
Steve
the fact that Bush is at an average of 46.5 percent in these two polls is great news. it’s hard to see him getting enough of the independants to win.
Rasmussen has the race a dead heat again today (Bush +0.4), while Zogby says Bush had another incredible polling day yesterday but still has Bush ahead only +2.
Zogby said Saturday was Bush’s best day of polling, 50 to 43. Yet ABC News/WP said Saturday was Kerry’s best day of polling (!), which is why Bush’s lead dropped to just 1. Can someone explain this? Doesn’t this kind of make tracking polls pretty dubious?
The 8% undecided is somewhat good news for Kerry if the conventional wisdom of 75%+- of undecided will break against incumbent. Anyone know what Florida undecided did in 2000 or earlier?
Oct 24
Dead heat in AR!!!!!
Women, independents help Kerry erase 9-point deficit
Sunday, Oct 24, 2004
By David Robinson
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK – Sen. John Kerry has pulled even with President Bush in Arkansas after being down 9 points, according to a new poll for the Arkansas News Bureau and Stephens Media Group.
Kerry, a Democrat, and the Republican Bush each received 48 percent support from likely voters surveyed Monday through Wednesday by Opinion Research Associates of Little Rock. A poll two weeks earlier gave Bush a 52 percent to 43 percent lead, just within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
The story there is obviously Bush at 46%. The last poll, Scripps, had him at 43%. Those are really, really good for Kerry.
A couple more results like this and I’ll consider FL “lean Kerry.”
Latex me baffled, cause I never thought Ohio would look this good for Kerry before Florida. With the 600K new Dem registered in Ohio, I thought it in Kerry’s column if we’re within the MOE, on election eve. Same goes for Pennsylvania.
It’s 7 — and not 8 — percent undecided. Either way, good news for Kerry!