Donald Trump: polls of approval and favorability

[pbrower2a]

The first four states to be polled since the November election all went for Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump is making no gains among potential voters in four states that he lost. Two polls are of New York State, one of New Jersey, and one of recent swing-state Virginia. The second poll of New York state is the one that I go with.

First one: New Jersey. Quinnipiac.

President-elect Donald Trump remains unpopular in New Jersey, with a negative 38 - 51 percent favorability rating. (Obama up 56-35 in approval... guess what sort of Presidential nominee the Democrats will be able to win with in 2020?)

https://poll.qu.edu/new-jersey/release-d...aseID=2408


Quinnipiac, Virginia , conducted Dec 6-11

https://poll.qu.edu/virginia/release-det...aseID=2412

Trump
favorable 39%
unfavorable 53%

Quinnipiac poll of New York, conducted Dec. 13-19:

https://poll.qu.edu/new-york-state/relea...aseID=2413

Trump:
favorable 31%
unfavorable 59%

By region...
NYC: -46
suburbs: -23
upstate: -14




I didn't expect a poll of Maryland, not that it contradicts anything that polls of New York, New Jersey, and Virginia already say.

First, the incumbent Republican Governor is doing very well in a deep-blue (Atlas Red) state: 74% approval! Fiscal conservative, but basically non-ideological... we could use much of that anywhere.

Second -- Donald Trump is deep underwater in approval -- 30% favorable (combined "somewhat" and "strongly" favorable) and 56% unfavorable -- with 48% seeing him as "strongly unfavorable".

http://2qtvrz46wjcg34jx1h1blgd2.wpengine...y-2017.pdf

To be sure, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland do not constitute or even contain a state easily described as a microcosm of America. I am more interested in Obama-Trump states for now. I'm guessing that if states from Virginia to Maine were to have their say on Donald Trump, then he'd be vulnerable to a military coup.  

Red is for a Democratic advantage, and blue is for a Republican advantage.


Favorability:



Probably our best approximation until about March, when we have policies to discuss more than personality.


Approval:



Not likely useful until March.


Even -- white



Blue, positive and 40-43%  20% saturation
............................ 44-47%  40%  
............................ 48-50%  50%
............................ 51-55%  70%
............................ 56%+     90%

Red, negative and  48-50%  20% (raw approval or favorability)
..........................  44-47%  30%
..........................  40-43%  50%
..........................  35-39%  70%
.......................under  35%  90%

Colors chosen for partisan affiliation.

[pbrower2a]

Pew Research -- approval of the transitions of recent Presidents:



http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content...sition.png

...

[pbrower2a]

(That's George III of England, by the way, and he really was awful. He gets all the blame for the American Revolution).

[pbrower2a]

In the second full week of January we should have far more polls on favorability (if not approval, as he is not yet President), most likely in states that did not vote for Donald Trump, than the one or so a week as we have been getting. A poll for California or Connecticut would be uninteresting.

We shall soon see (in the middle of the week) whether people in states that barely voted for Donald Trump have misgivings about him. North Carolina, home of one of the busiest pollsters in America, will be among the states polled this weekend. North Carolina is not that far to the right of Virginia.

Quinnipiac heavily polls such usual swing states as Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Wisconsin has a law school that does much polling. Michigan has some shaky pollsters, but at this point, beggars can't be choosers.

After March or so, approval ratings will be about his performance instead of about his promises. This is not a thread for predictions except to derive likely electoral results from polling data. If Donald Trump is no better than he seems according to the states for which we have polls, then he or his successor (in the event of a lightning stroke in broad daylight from You Know Who)... then the Republicans will have deep trouble in Gubernatorial elections (they are safe in the House and Senate) in 2018 and overall in 2020. "Favorability" relates what people think of a politician as a person; "approval" relates what people think about the desirability of his policies and whether they see the politician effective in achieving his policies.

Polls for New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia are the sort that one would expect to see before a coup in some other country.

[pbrower2a]

Regional split:McClatchy/Marist national poll, conducted Dec. 1-9:

http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/...202016.pdf

Trump
favorable 43%
unfavorable 52%

by region…
Midwest: +5
Northeast: -10
South: -5
West: -27

(national -9)

Economic distress in the Midwest may have won the election for Donald Trump.

[Warren Dew]

Thanks for fixing the thread title.

[Eric the Green]

I suspect Trump will have strong unfavorable ratings throughout his presidency, yet stands a good chance of winning re-election anyway, if he runs.

Such would be in accord with 2016 too.

[pbrower2a]

(01-07-2017, 06:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I suspect Trump will have strong unfavorable ratings throughout his presidency, yet stands a good chance of winning re-election anyway, if he runs.

Such would be in accord with 2016 too.

The Republicans will be so corrupt and cruel that they will not dare lose in 2020. Some might face prison time -- and so might some of their operatives.

The key to the 2020 elections will be gubernatorial races in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Florida. Should Democrats win two of those three states, then Democratic politicians there and in North Carolina  will be unable to suppress the D3emocratic vote in those states.

[pbrower2a]

(01-07-2017, 06:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Thanks for fixing the thread title.

As soon as I saw it... I am a perfectionist, but less than a perfect typist.

[pbrower2a]

Quinnipiac poll from 1/5-1/9 (national):

Quote:Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his responsibilities as president-elect?

Approve - 37%
Disapprove - 51%

Is your opinion of Donald Trump favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him?

Favorable - 37%
Unfavorable - 51%

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-det...aseID=2415

I was hoping for statewide polls. Maybe next week.

Donald Trump ran as a Man of the People and has since become a Man of the Moneyed Elites.

It's a common fraud in business -- Bait and Switch.

[pbrower2a]

(01-07-2017, 06:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I suspect Trump will have strong unfavorable ratings throughout his presidency, yet stands a good chance of winning re-election anyway, if he runs.

Such would be in accord with 2016 too.

Adapted heavily from Nate Silver in 538.com.

1. Watch the approval  ratings, as those involve performance of the duties of the President. Approval measures in essence how the People deem the President's stewardship of the economy and foreign policy and avoidance of scandals.

Favorability relates how people think of the President (or any other politician) as a person -- basically "do you like him? Favorability of Bill Clinton was very low while approval of his Presidency was very high.  Except for the sexual stuff, Bill Clinton did fine. If Donald Trump gives America an economic miracle and gets good results on foreign policy, then people will not care so much about the personality that he showed in the campaign and as President-Elect. People might tolerate a politician even if they don't like him -- maybe he brings home the bacon and votes right.

We won't see approval ratings until Donald Trump is President for perhaps a month. Approval ratings will be the commodity to watch.

2. Approval ratings matter greatly. A good estimate is the share of the vote that he got -- about 46%.  Typically, once a politician (and this applies for Governors and Senators) is legislating or administrating, his approval ratings fall about 7%. He is no longer campaigning, and he must disappoint some people who voted for him. The results that he gets as a politician will keep his approval rating at 7% below his percentage share of the vote if he does a middling job, but he can gain or lose. Should he choose to run for re-election, then he will campaign, and start building optimism about him among marginal voters.

The 'average' elected official gains about 7% from his approval rating to his vote share. That's the average for great numbers of politicians as campaigners against an 'average' challenger; some incumbents and challengers are better, and some are worse.

So let's say that Senator Snake has an approval rating of 41% going into a campaign season seeking re-election. To get a plurality of the vote he would need to be an unusually-strong campaigner against an ordinary challenger. As an ordinary incumbent against an ordinary challenger -- he loses 52-48. If he is an unusually effective campaigner or his opponent is unusually weak, then he has some chance of winning.

Most Presidents were Governors or Senators before being elected President. The President is in between the two.

3. What about breaking scandals? Usually the incumbent's ratings are already deflated. Politicians who know a little something That Donald Trump has never held elective office will show. Maybe he won't make the same mistakes that career politicians make in office. Maybe he will do catastrophic blunders  that career politicians would never do.

But that is in the election. We have three long years to wait before we see the character of the 2020 Presidential race.  In the meantime, Donald Trump basically needs to keep an eight-year bear market from collapsing, needs to avoid making more people despise him as a person, needs to do tangible good for Americans who did not vote for him, and may need to deal wisely with some international troubles or a nasty natural disaster. The Presidency can show personal faults for all to see.

Now let's consider what happens when "Governor Goodwill" has an approval rating of 48%. His opponent is average as a challenger. Governor Goodwill might not be a great campaigner, so he is able to parlay his good will  into a gain of 3% against his approval rating. That's enough to win with.

The assumption is that the Governor or Senator has won a campaign to win the seat. Appointed politicians as a rule do badly in races for re-election.

In early 2012 I could say with considerable confidence that, when Barack Obama had approval ratings just above 45%, he was going to win.We knew what he was like as a campaigner, and the only wild card was how strong an opponent he would have.
Mitt Romney was about as good a challenger as Obama could have faced, and Romney did unusually well for a challenger against a popular President. He did better than Kerry or Dole -- let alone Mondale or McGovern. (For that matter, Romney did better than Trump...I only wonder how his wife's medical condition was and if that caused him to stay out of the Presidential race).

4. Now what about hidden scandals that break? Usually the incumbent pol has his problems before the scandal. He has something to hide, and secretiveness is not good for winning support of potential voters. Political journalists are keeping their distances from him and not writing laudatory stories that might be embarrassing to the journalist in a couple of months. Fellow pols may avoid him. The scandal-plagued politician typically has problems before things break in the news. Approval ratings are usually down because the pol cannot show the ebullient side of him that he wins campaigns with. I'm not predicting a major scandal on the scale of Watergate or Teapot Dome  -- yet.  But if something like that emerges, then the President is in deep trouble even before the story reaches the news media.

Paradoxically one can almost ignore those in predicting how a subsequent election will break.

5. Midterm elections. The 2018 elections give Democrats practically zero chance of gaining a Senate or House majority. But if the Democrats have 24 seats to defend and the Republicans only 9, the Democrats have several Republican Governorships to target.  Those include Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Should Democrats win the 2018 gubernatorial races in those states, then Republicans will be less capable of winning those states through voter suppression and other chicanery.

And what happens if the Democrats pick up an unlikely Senate seat, let us say in Texas? Such indicates that the wind is blowing in a different direction long before 2018.

NOW -- the WILD CARD!

6. Will we have a free and fair election in 2020? The Republicans apparently have that choice for now.

[pbrower2a]

Gallup: Trump off to a very bad start



Trump's 48% transition approval rating in December was already the lowest for any presidential transition Gallup has measured, starting with Bill Clinton's in 1992-1993. Trump's current rating only further separates him from his predecessors -- particularly Barack Obama, who earned 83% approval for his handling of the transition process in January 2009, up from 75% in mid-December 2008.

Republicans' rating of Trump's transition has remained positive, with 87% approving in the Jan. 4-8 poll, similar to the 86% recorded last month. Very few Democrats approve, which has also been fairly steady, at 13% this month versus 17% in December. Meanwhile, his transition approval among independents has fallen from 46% to 33%.

Low Transition Approval Not a Function of Popular Vote

The last president before Trump to win the election despite losing the national popular vote was George W. Bush in 2000. However, while Bush's transition scores were lower than those of both his predecessor (Clinton) and his successor (Obama), his 61% approval rating in mid-January 2001 was nowhere near as low as Trump's is today.

Clinton received the smallest share of the U.S. popular vote (43%) of any of the past four presidents because a large segment of votes went to third-party candidate Ross Perot. Nevertheless, 62% of Americans approved of his handling of the transition process shortly after the election in November 1992, and by January 1993, his approval had risen to 68%.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/201833/approv...yndication

How quickly does he become a polished politician? Or does he ever?

[The Wonkette]

(01-13-2017, 02:35 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Gallup: Trump off to a very bad start



Trump's 48% transition approval rating in December was already the lowest for any presidential transition Gallup has measured, starting with Bill Clinton's in 1992-1993. Trump's current rating only further separates him from his predecessors -- particularly Barack Obama, who earned 83% approval for his handling of the transition process in January 2009, up from 75% in mid-December 2008.

Republicans' rating of Trump's transition has remained positive, with 87% approving in the Jan. 4-8 poll, similar to the 86% recorded last month. Very few Democrats approve, which has also been fairly steady, at 13% this month versus 17% in December. Meanwhile, his transition approval among independents has fallen from 46% to 33%.

Low Transition Approval Not a Function of Popular Vote

The last president before Trump to win the election despite losing the national popular vote was George W. Bush in 2000. However, while Bush's transition scores were lower than those of both his predecessor (Clinton) and his successor (Obama), his 61% approval rating in mid-January 2001 was nowhere near as low as Trump's is today.

Clinton received the smallest share of the U.S. popular vote (43%) of any of the past four presidents because a large segment of votes went to third-party candidate Ross Perot. Nevertheless, 62% of Americans approved of his handling of the transition process shortly after the election in November 1992, and by January 1993, his approval had risen to 68%.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/201833/approv...yndication

How quickly does he become a polished politician? Or does he ever?

That is interesting about Clinton, because my impression was that his first month or two in office was a disaster.  IIRC, he tried to allow gays to serve in the military about a decade or two before the public was ready and the firestorm ended up with "Don't ask, don't tell", which everyone hated.  Also, he went through two failed Attorney General nominees before he landed Janet Reno.

[Bob Butler 54]

Still going down...

CNN Wrote:Donald Trump will become president Friday with an approval rating of just 40%, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll, the lowest of any recent president and 44 points below that of President Barack Obama, the 44th president.

Following a tumultuous transition period, approval ratings for Trump's handling of the transition are more than 20 points below those for any of his three most recent predecessors. Obama took the oath in 2009 with an 84% approval rating, 67% approved of Clinton's transition as of late December 1992 and 61% approved of George W. Bush's transition just before he took office in January 2001.

On the plus side, impeachment proceedings haven't started yet.  

[pbrower2a]

(01-17-2017, 02:15 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-17-2017, 06:46 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Still going down...

CNN Wrote:Donald Trump will become president Friday with an approval rating of just 40%, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll, the lowest of any recent president and 44 points below that of President Barack Obama, the 44th president.

Following a tumultuous transition period, approval ratings for Trump's handling of the transition are more than 20 points below those for any of his three most recent predecessors. Obama took the oath in 2009 with an 84% approval rating, 67% approved of Clinton's transition as of late December 1992 and 61% approved of George W. Bush's transition just before he took office in January 2001.

On the plus side, impeachment proceedings haven't started yet.  

Very chaotic times await.

New Monmouth Poll (1/12-1/15)

Quote:Trump favorability rating: 34% Favorable, 46% Unfavorable



https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institu...US_011717/

men: -6
women: -16
whites: +5
non-whites: -45
income less than $50k: -10
income $50-100k: -14
income over $100k: -21

Yikes! With this low level of support he or Pence will need a whites-only electorate to get re-elected.

Different criteria apply to this poll than to the CNN/ORC poll, but the margin is the same. Donald Trump will need miracles to avoid being one of the most despised Presidents ever.

I will be more than ready for Barack Obama again, even if that requires that he be Prime Minister (which requires a practical re-do of the Constitution), but after Trump who knows what will be necessary.

[David Horn]

(01-17-2017, 04:42 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: He could return to the Senate and come to lead it. Or he could do something unorthodox and get elected to the House. Who knows, the GOP lock on the House may not be a permanent thing.

If he really wants to do more in the public sector, he should set his sights on the SCOTUS.  It worked for Taft.

[Anthony '58]

I hate polls like this - because they don't delineate whether the disapprover does so from the right of the left.

See also ObamaCare - which advocates of single payer also "disapprove" of.

[The Wonkette]

(01-17-2017, 04:42 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: He (Obama) could return to the Senate and come to lead it. Or he could do something unorthodox and get elected to the House. Who knows, the GOP lock on the House may not be a permanent thing.

Unorthodox but not unprecedented. See John Quincy Adams.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quincy_Adams

[pbrower2a]

Here's the first poll of a state that in fact voted for Donald Trump (if not by much) -- North Carolina. PPP, as if you are surprised.

January 13-16, 2017
Survey of 953 North Carolina voters

North Carolina Survey Results

Q1
Do you approve or disapprove of President
Barack Obama's job performance?

50% Approve
..........................................................
47% Disapprove
......................................................
 4% Not sure
..........................................................
Q2
Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion
of Donald Trump?

44% Favorable
........................................................
49% Unfavorable
....................................................
 6%  Not sure
....................................................

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2..._11817.pdf

In other polling news... North Carolinians do not expect Donald Trump to be as good a President as Barack Obama; they trust the intelligence services more than they trust Donald Trump; and they don't look sympathetically upon Russian President Vladimir Putin. They want the Affordable Care Act reformed and strengthened -- not scrapped.



Red is for a Democratic advantage, and blue is for a Republican advantage.


Favorability:



Probably our best approximation until about March.


Approval:



Not likely useful until March.


Even -- white



Blue, positive and 40-43%  20% saturation
............................ 44-47%  40%  
............................ 48-50%  50%
............................ 51-55%  70%
............................ 56%+     90%

Red, negative and  48-50%  20% (raw approval or favorability)
..........................  44-47%  30%
..........................  40-43%  50%
..........................  35-39%  70%
.......................under  35%  90%

Colors chosen for partisan affiliation.

[pbrower2a]

(01-18-2017, 02:34 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: So WTF happened in November?

Oh I know, November was like a drunken f___ ... everyone was supposed to forget about it the next morning. It was really nothing dear ....

...Until at least 2021 we are going to recognize that the last really-good President was Barack Obama. The Democrats can win big with another Obama-like nominee in 2020. This shadow will loom over Donald Trump, a vulgar and impetuous mediocrity.

All in all, I see President Obama as another Eisenhower (consider that in 2012 he won 331 electoral votes, and not one of them in a state that Eisenhower didn't win twice). But his temperament is that of a 60-something Reactive, the sort of person who typically reaches the apex of secular power after the Crisis is resolved or is all but resolved. The pattern includes Washington, John Adams, Truman, and Eisenhower, with your guess on who the better Gilded Presidents were. He is not the sort of leader to push Americans into a new direction.

Donald Trump has already betrayed many who voted for him, and for a President who got a slightly-larger share of the vote than Dukakis in 1988 and McCain in 2008 -- and both were considered clear losers -- there just isn't much wiggle room for error as President. This is especially true if the Republicans lose two of three gubernatorial races in Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin in 2018.

Could Barack Obama have been the Gray Champion? He would have needed a Third Term. The American economy looks to have grown out of the economic meltdown of 2007-2009 as it did out of the 1929-1932 meltdown. Maybe Howe would need to adjust the Boom/X boundary to 1961/1962 instead of 1960/1961.

"General Motors is alive, and Osama bin Laden is dead" -- and we all know that a seven-year bull market is no accident, and that he had to be on at worst an arms-length relationship with the intelligence agencies and the Armed Services to whack Osama bin Laden.