Donald Trump: polls of approval and favorability

[pbrower2a]

Well, here are the results




Somehow Georgia and North Carolina are undecided, but as I see it, the leads are large enough that no recounts are going to change the crude numbers significantly. Georgia is a bare win for Biden and North Carolina is a bare win for Trump, as I see it. Thus

J. Biden, K. Harris (D) 305 electoral votes
D. Trump, M. Pence (R, incumbent) 232 electoral votes

decided by 1% or less saturation 2 -- marginal wins
decided by 1% or more but less than 5% saturation 3 -- weak wins
decided by 5% or more but less than 10% saturation 5 -- strong wins
decided by 10% or more saturation 7 -- overpowering wins

A few comments:

1. All states have 'landed' into the categories that they will stay in. A few states, most notably California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, and Ohio have 4% or more of their vote outstanding. The vote outstanding in those states (as of November 12) are presumably almost entirely from absentee voters in urban areas. Except for Ohio these are in states that are already non-close (10% or higher) wins for Biden, so none of those could be category-changers. The 4% of the vote out in Ohio would have to go about 90% for Biden for Ohio to go from 'close to being close' to 'close". Ohio remains in the 'strong Trump'    

Only eight states were decided by 5% or less, and I am guessing the often wayward Second Congressional districts of Maine and Nebraska. That is 125 of 538 electoral votes. The rest of the country wasn't really close.

If I am in the foreign intelligence service of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Russian Federation or the People's Republic of China, I would see a map like this and see a country grossly unstable and potential prey for mischief. If conquering the United States is effectively impossible, then splintering it into warring entities (think of the former Yugoslavia) looks much easier. If I am in the foreign intelligence service of such a country as Germany, India, Japan, or the UK and prefer a solid USA as a reliable ally I would be concerned about the polarization. Considering that the D-R split is on cultural lines almost as severe as those that rifted the former Yugoslavia, I would see great opportunity if I wanted the one great superpower to disintegrate.

I see another parallel in Spain in the 1930's, where large parts of the country were about as modern in attitudes of the time as... well, New England... and others had attitudes characteristic of the late middle ages. Spanish reactionaries accepted only one modernity: technology, and that is far from enough for getting along with people with modern sensibilities. That modernity was adequate for the victory of Francisco Franco. America may not have much of a radical Left, but it certainly has a significant, fascist Right.

3. The map is amazingly like that of 2016, with only five states and one Congressional district changing sides (and I am calling Georgia for Biden). This is very close to what I would have expected with an even shift of 1.6% of the popular vote from Trump to Biden. The voters dying off or becoming unable to vote due to debility from 2016 were almost entirely over 55, and those voters (it is about the same for the Silent Generation born 1925 to 1942, Boomers born between 1943 and 1960, and the first five years of Generation X born between 1961 and 1981, using the definitions of Howe and Strauss) were about 5% more R than D and new voters replacing them (almost entirely Millennial adults under 40) are about 20% more D than R. Figuring that the potential age-span of voters is about 60 years, and about 1.6% of the voters from the last Presidential election dies off or goes too senile to vote each year, that is about a 1.6 shift if nothing else really changes.

That may be the best explanation. That would have been enough to swing Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and the election from the 2016 election to the 2020 election, and those states went from bare wins for Trump to bare wins for Biden. Biden may not have obvious youth appeal, but Trump does nothing to offset the D drift among Millennial voters. Trump did hold Florida and its 29 electoral votes -- only to lose instead those of Arizona (11), Georgia (16), and Nebraska's Second Congressional District (1) instead. That is one electoral vote short of a wash.

4. Here are two approval polls from fully after the election:

Quote:Ipsos Core Political Data (weekly), Nov. 6-10, 1363 adults including 1169 RV

Adults:

Approve 39 (-2)
Disapprove 56 (+3)

Strongly approve 23 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 43 (nc)


RV:

Approve 40 (-2)
Disapprove 57 (+3)

Strongly approve 25 (-1)
Strongly disapprove 44 (-1)

So Ipsos has a very different picture than The Economist does.

Obviously one typically had to register to vote, and not all who registered to vote did so. 57% disapproval is hideous, suggesting a political failure. The 43% strongly disapproving of President Trump were never going to vote for him, and their attitudes range from seeing him as at least an abject failure to  (well, I will spare us all any graphic language). Half of those registered voters, if they represent actual voters, still voted for him if they disapproved of his Presidency. Was it of the personality or the results?

Quote:Another pollster has actual voters as the measure, and those are close (why should one expect otherwise) to the electoral results:

The Economist/YouGov weekly tracker, Nov. 8-10, 1500 RV, including 802 Biden voters and 599 Trump voters

All RV:

Approve 46 (+1)
Disapprove 51 (-3)

Strongly approve 32 (nc)
Strongly disapprove 45 (-4)


Biden voters:

Approve 3
Disapprove 97

Strongly approve 1
Strongly disapprove 92


Trump voters:

Approve 95
Disapprove 4

Strongly approve 72
Strongly disapprove 1

In this case, disapproval of Trump was close to the electoral result in Biden votes.

5. As with Obama going into 2012, so I figured it would be so with Trump in 2020: the best predictor of the electoral result would be 100-disapproval. I could not imagine any metric better for predicting either the nationwide result than this number. An incumbent President, whether a good one by most non-ideological measures or a horrid one by most non-ideological measures, has control of the agenda so that he can have a good chance of winning undecided voters as election time approaches. An incumbent politician of any kind whose approval numbers are 43 approve and 45 disapprove rather early has plenty of opportunity to get 50% of the vote in the next election by supporting popular legislation in his bailiwick and having a spirited campaign. But get disapproval over 51 at any point, and you have trouble. Coming back from such a number or despite facing such disapproval numbers is difficult-to-highly unlikely.

6. I was one of those who saw Trump crashing and burning in a landslide -- something in the range of 413 electoral votes. As it turns out, Trump did far better than 100-disapproval just a couple months ago suggested. I saw him as a failure in the league of Hoover in 1932 and Carter in 1980, if for different reasons. I could easily say of him "I hate his guts" as I rarely do of any political figure short of any of the three emperors-in-all-but name of North Korea, Haile Mengistu, Pol Pot, either Duvalier, Idi Amin, Satan Hussein, either Assad, or al-Baghdadi.

I have compared the character of Donald Trump to the most incontrovertibly-infamous three Roman Emperors for corruption, cruelty, incompetence, and sexual depravity: Caligula, Nero, and Commodus. Imperial Rome was a corrupt society in the extreme, and Presidents of the United States on the whole are far better than the lot of Imperatores Romanorum. Trump better fits as a Roman Emperor than a President of the United States for his intemperance and his despotic tendencies.

7. So how did Trump make it closer than I expected? He must have convinced many that even if they hated his guts they would be wise to vote for them... almost certainly out of fear of crime in the streets, left-wing terrorism, socialism as practiced under Fidel/Raul Castro or Hugo Chavez/Nicolas Maduro, and a faltering economy. Of course I give credit to Barack Obama for the seven-year boom going into the Trump Presidency; of course I like the civic peace that was the norm under Obama; of course I prefer scandal-free public and personal life of the President and his administration; of course I prefer a President who defers to science and expertise instead of gut feelings. I fault the President for his bungled treatment of COVID-19. I consider a vile critter whom I would never want in my midst. I despise his serial adultery and his disrespect for our service personnel, current and former. As someone with a disability that messes up my life, I have nothing but contempt for anyone who mocks disabilities. Anyone who can say that there are good people on both sides of a divide between violent fascists and... well, anyone who stands for the virtues needed in a democratic society to keep it democratic tears at democracy.   But even more, I can only think ill of someone who has bragged about grabbing women by their crotches.

OK, Donald Trump is about as pure an example of Homo oeconomicus, the person has his own gain and indulgence above all else in life, as anyone who has ever gotten so high in the political arena. He knows something that most of us don't want to admit: that the highest principle that many have is their economic lives, and that they will do odious things and align with odious persons and causes to that end. His campaign exploited that quite competently.

8. The observation that Texas is becoming increasingly like America as a whole in its politics is well justified. It seems to be going the opposite direction of Iowa and Ohio. Iowa and Ohio moved slightly from the high-single-digit margins that I associate with Trump in 2016, but Texas moved more to the Left than just about any state (OK, Maine at-large, Minnesota, and New Hampshire). Except that Texas will likely have 40 electoral votes in 2014 I would not speak of this.