Posted on 12/21/2016 10:08:01 AM PST by Kaslin
A few notes from this week's pre-Christmas, post-election nationwide survey from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal. As a point of reference, the final poll in this series in November gave Hillary Clinton a four-point national lead. She won the (irrelevant) popular vote by two percentage points. Anyway, a few data points from their latest numbers -- which are gathered from American adults, not registered voters:
(1) Donald Trump's favorability rating has jumped 12 points since mid-October, from an abysmal 29 percent (which was an outlier, even by Trump's historically-low pre-election standards) to 41 percent today. More Americans, 47 percent, view him unfavorably. Still, a net (-6) rating is relatively good for him. As we discussed based on exit polling on November 9, negative views of Trump were not overstated in national polls. What the experts didn't expect was for Trump to pull in a substantial number of votes from people who nevertheless hold an unfavorable opinion of him.
(2) The right track/wrong track numbers also improved substantially, with the percentage of Americans saying the country is headed in the wrong direction dropping to 54 percent. That's down from 65 percent in the thick of the election cycle. This seems to align with Fox News' poll last week showing that of all the adjectives Americans associate with their sentiments now that the election has been resolved, "hopeful" was at the top of the list, at 59 percent. This stat is also interesting: "When asked about the outlook for the economy over the next year, 42% of Americans said it would get better and 19% said worse. That marked the highest level of economic optimism since October, 2012."
(3) Half of Americans approve of Trump's handling of his presidential transition, with voters sharply divided on Trump's appointments thus far:
NBC/WSJ poll: Voters evenly split on approval of Trump's cabinet picks thus far pic.twitter.com/gxhzzabYWN— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) December 20, 2016
Voters mostly rejected the criticism from some on the Left that Trump has picked too many ex-military officials to join his team, with 61 percent in support of the move, and just 29 percent calling it a bad idea. The public is more wary of the number of very wealthy cabinet members Trump has nominated.
(4) Trump voters were asked to identify their primary motivation in pulling the lever for him. The large majority of respondents chose one of three answers, distributed roughly evenly: Improving the economy, focusing on America's interests ahead of other nations', and defeating Hillary Clinton. Just one percent said they backed Trump in furtherance of "traditional Republican policies."
I see the fake pollsters are back. Lots of people don’t LIKE Trump, yet they still voted for him. “Likeability” is a Political Consultant manufactured falsehood that is pretty much irrelevant to US politics outside the Fake Media.
The fake stream media is failing badly ...
This makes a lot of sense, when you consider that he's not really a Republican after all.
Remember when reasonable people used to actually put some credence in polls?
Seems like a long time ago.
More fake b.s. polling! Trump’s REAL popularity is over 50% and will keep growing. And his approval rating was NEVER as low as 29%...I don’t care what anyone says.
When is the last time you answered a phone call from a number you didn’t recognize? For many of us, there’s the answer.
The really cynical like me think they just make up numbers out of thin air.
Anyone who truly believes the polls must have been in a coma since Nov. 8.
“Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.”
George Patton
NBC is fake news, don’t believe anything they say
I am surprised the NBC pollsters still don’t have Hillary winning!
That could also be said of Ronald Reagan.
I never answer calls from numbers I do not recognize. I have a specific ringtone for that.
Since they, msm/leftist will not like anything Trump does.
Trump might as well do whatever he wants.
Excellent point.
I saw the same thing in the exit polls as well. The people who did not trust either candidate, or did not think either candidate was good, both voted for Trump. Also independents voted for Trump.
And we were afraid of the NeverTrump vote. As it turns out, there were very few of them that acted on it. But the NeverHillary voters were definitely a factor. Many voted democrat and simply left the president spot blank.
But with all the bad press, you can’t expect Trump to win favor too quickly. I think he is doing very well among those who voted for him. And pretty well among those who don’t watch CNN or MSNBC. But it will take time to win them over. Which is not really necessary.
Any “bounce” is due to the continuing vilification of Trump by the media. Whatever the MSM pushes, it seems the American people push back.
It’s a beautiful thing.
I stole that from Kellyanne Conway, who cited it as one reason that the polls are so off.
So this is their new excuse for getting the entire 2016 election cycle and poll after poll wrong?
OH MY SIDES!!!!
Let me tell you: Hillary would not have had such a honeymoon bounce.
You can imagine her cabinet picks.
Huma for Sec State,
Debbie Wasserman Schultz for chief of staff.
etc.
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