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.
actually, santi, cheney spent a lot of time recently campaigning in Hawaii, of all places.
Is there actually reason to suspect HI would be close? Is he trying to lend support to a downticket race? Is there a Republican pocket or core of activists that they are hoping to identify or mobilize? Is there a referrendum to push?
Santi: Not to answer for Ruy but the early exit poling usually tends to favor Republicans. This is more true of the 4pm numbers than the 2. But it is also increasingly unreliable to pick a winner with a higher percentage of early voting. So that Kerry is ahead is a good sign. But it’s no guarantee. Keep up the GOTV. Pour it on!!!!
It is about one o’clock pacific time and buzzflash.com seems to have some early exit poll numbers that favor Kerry. I wonder if Ruy might post a comment on the reliability of early exit polling. Drudgereport seems to be downplaying the early exits as unreliable, claiming that gore was ahead in certain states in early exit polling that he actually lost. But I’ve also read that early exit polling tends to favor republicans and that democrats tend to vote later in the day. If so, then Kerry’s lead in the exit polls will only grow as the day progresses. There seems to be a hint of a buzz that Kerry might run the table tonight, but I’d hate to get too hopeful and then find the night shift dramatically toward President Bush. Lastly, did you notice that Dick Cheney in the last day or two of the election stayed out of the swing states? His negatives must be so high that Republican strategists decided to keep him around Wyoming for the remainder of the campaign.