Posted on 05/16/2018 11:06:52 AM PDT by ethom
In fact, since the start of this year, the percentage of Americans looking on their nation’s leader favorably has risen steadily.
This has caused liberals no small amount of consternation. But in a new analysis of voters’ attitudes toward Trump — derived from more than a million interviews with voters in all 50 states — SurveyMonkey offers the most satisfying explanation of the president’s improving fortunes to date, while also putting Trump’s rebound in edifying perspective. Here’s a quick rundown of the pollster’s findings:
How Trump has really been performing: Trump’s approval numbers are more remarkable for their stability than their modest gains in recent months. The president enjoyed a honeymoon period in which his favorability rating sat in the mid-40s (SurveyMonkey’s poll is a couple points more favorable to Trump than the average one, but its trend line is consistent with those of virtually every pollster).
Over the ensuing months, as Trump tried to shepherd health-care legislation through Congress, his standing diminished among Republican and independent voters, losing about five percentage points of support from each of those groups. There’s been almost no variation in Democratic attitudes toward Trump.
By December, Trump’s approval rating bottomed out at 40 percent. Then, shortly after he signed his tax cuts into law, his support from Republicans and independents began to steadily rebound. As of this month, the president has regained about three percentage points of support from both those groups since his nadir, in late 2017.
Why Trump’s approval has gone up: at the start of his presidency, 79 percent of conservative Republicans believed that he could “get things done” — by December 2017, that had fallen to just 60 percent. Once the tax cuts passed, however, conservatives’ confidence in Trump’s “git ’er done” abilities spiked back up into the mid-70s.
Which is to say: While the actual substance of Trump’s tax law mattered less to strong GOP partisans than the frustration of seeing their team repeatedly lose high-profile legislative battles. And the sense that Trump was ineffective — weakened his position among some Republicans and independents. Once the president proved he could, in fact, “get things done,” however, his image with such voters recovered.
The other wind in Trump’s sails has been the expanding economy. Between early summer 2017 and this month, the public’s approval of the president’s economic management increased by five percentage points, from 44 to 49 percent.
There is a small subset of the electorate that sees Trump as a scoundrel, but doesn’t mind, so long as the economy is growing, and Congress appears to be doing things.
One reason for Trump’s relatively soft Republican support: Younger GOP voters — especially, younger female GOP voters — aren’t too crazy about the guy. While the president enjoys the “strong approval” of 64 percent of Republican men over 45, he gets such affection from just 37 percent of GOP women below that age.
What all this adds up to: Trump has regained some support, but remains less popular than he was on Inauguration Day. Much of the support he does have is soft. Should economic conditions worsen, it would not be surprising for his approval ratings to drop.
But if current trends persist, Trump is unlikely to see his approval rating fall. His weakness at that point derived from his dearth of legislative accomplishments. The tax cut abolished that liability. And because the House map is skewed so profoundly in the GOP’s favor, it’s quite possible that Trump’s present level of public support could prove robust enough to allow Republicans to retain the House, which would merely require them to keep the margin of their popular-vote loss to about seven percentage points.
Blue Wave = Ripple
The assumptions this author makes about the attitudes of conservative voters are breathtaking in their wrongness.
Young people’s opinion reflect the triumph of the Left to complete their hostile takeover of the American education system throughout all of the grades and, of course, higher education. These kids have been fed the Left-wing dogma since Kindergarten.
the faces of the libbies expecting a ‘blue wave’ on election night 2018 that never comes is gonna be priceless...:)
Yep. And CNN ratings are down 30% for second week in May.
Worse is predicted for week 3.
Great week.
Kanye West is now just as popular with whites and blacks, this should give us hope..
All the GOP has to do to win is get on the side of the citizens and the rule of law.
Build the wall
Enforce the laws
Put Americans first, not fraudulently documented foreigners who broke in.
Sad that so many are unwilling to do that.
Hate to be so cynical, but who cares if the GOP keeps the House. The majority of them are Democrat Lite. Mia Love, once touted as a rising Conservative star is nothing more than the ultimate RINO, as are the other 24 that signed the letter demanding amnesty.
If that’s what we call having a Republican majority, w/ Ryan at the helm, who the hell cares. They haven’t done much.
Ryan is gone in the fall. :) Jim Jordan is coming....we need as many Freedom Caucus members in the vote as possible
I hope so. It’s getting really frustrating watching, hearing and reading about, all these guys pretending to give a darn. As we learn more and more about Gowdy, we’re all realizing that he’s great for some soundbytes, but not much else. Swamp creature to the bone.
Jim Jordan is legit. We all have to stand by him in the fall united against the swamp things!
That's because the Dem Party is now the party of freaks and fairies...........
You’re right. Almost as good as election night 2016 but in some ways, better. They’re going to resemble a stirred up ant hill.
you can just feel that the liberal MSM ‘knows’ they have it locked up are so sure and then like Charlie Brown and the football they get it ‘taken away’ from them lol
Hate to be so cynical, but who cares if the GOP keeps the House.
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That’s a silly thing to say. You don’t have a clue.
More like the splash in a porcelain vessel topped by a chrome handle.
It’s a long way till November. Trump promised a health-care plan in four weeks; what will the impact of that be? Democrats and a bunch of Republicans may force Congress to take up DACA again this year; that can’t do the GOP any good. The Korea talks, NAFTA, the Iran deal, tariffs, any or all of those could make Trump’s favorable plummet or send them through the roof. It’s too early to predict the GOP retaining anything.
THE UNHOLY TRINITY
- DNC
- MEDIA
- FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
More and more people are coming to the realization that these three are the real enemies of the constitution, freedom and democracy.
And see every day that all three working together to wage all out war against President Trump and the 63 million people who voted for him.
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