TRUMP AND THE POLLS: IS HE UP OR DOWN? In recent days, Democrats have been delighted with polls showing a decline in President Donald Trump’s job approval rating. Last Thursday, CNN’s Harry Enten declared the previous 24 hours “the worst polling day for Trump during his entire second term.” CNN focused on four recent polls showing Trump’s job approval underwater, although in the same period, there were four other polls that showed it above water.
Now it is the White House’s turn to hype the polls. A new Harvard-Harris survey, conducted by Mark Penn, the former Clinton pollster, has nearly across-the-board good news for the Trump administration and nearly across-the-board bad news for Democrats.
Start with job approval. The Harvard-Harris survey has Trump at 52% approve, 43% disapprove. Compare that to others in the last two weeks. Rasmussen had Trump at 51%-48%. Economist-YouGov at 50%-47%, Emerson at 48%-42%, Washington Post-Ipsos at 48%-51%, Quinnipiac at 45%-49%, and CNN at 46%-54%.
What accounts for the differences, with approval ranging from 52% at Harvard-Harris to 45% at Quinnipiac? Or for disapproval, ranging from 43% at Harvard-Harris to 54% at CNN?
It’s not the poll question or how it is worded. Job approval is a highly standardized poll question. The Quinnipiac poll asked: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?” The CNN poll asked the question in precisely the same words, and the Harvard-Harris poll was very slightly different at: “Do you disapprove or approve of the job Donald J. Trump is doing as President of the United States?” It’s all the same.
In a text exchange, Penn told me that the job approval and favorability questions he uses have been the same for many years. What is different is the sample of voters surveyed. The other polls, he explained, “have not changed their models to reflect the Republican surge, while we rebalance after each election to mirror reality.”
Last month, Gallup reported that the Republican Party “holds an edge in party affiliation for the third straight year,” adding that “prior to 2022, Republicans only had a slight edge once before, in 1991.” In other words, Republicans have almost always trailed Democrats in party affiliation until quite recently. The edge is narrow, 46% GOP to 45% Democratic, but even that represents a big change.
In 2016, according to the same Gallup numbers, Democrats held a 47%-42% lead in party affiliation. Go back to 2008 and Democrats held a 52%-40% lead. Given those figures, it is a really important development that Republicans have caught up and surpassed Democrats, even slightly, for three years in a row.
You can see how important it is for an opinion poll to reflect the electorate as it exists today, not at some time in the past. It’s the key to understanding the Trump polls.
As far as the Harvard-Harris poll is concerned, nearly everything looks good for Trump. His approval on key issues is far better than predecessor President Joe Biden. On the economy, 49% approve of Trump’s handling, while Biden was at 37%. On immigration, 56% approve of Trump, while Biden was at 34%. On foreign affairs, 48% approve of Trump, while Biden was at 38%.
In addition to that, Penn asked a question most others wouldn’t ask: “Do you think that Donald Trump is doing a better or worse job as Joe Biden did as president?” Fifty-eight percent said Trump is doing better, while 42% said Biden did better. Biden used to say many, many times, “Don’t compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative.” Well, voters are doing that now, and they like the alternative better.
The poll also showed big majorities support specific Trump policies. The following list is just those Trump policies with approval above 60%:
• Eighty-one percent support “deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes.”
• Seventy-six percent support “undertaking a full-scale effort to find and eliminate fraud and waste in government expenditures.”
• Seventy-six percent support “closing the border with added security and policies that discourage illegal crossings.”
• Sixty-nine percent support “banning men who have undergone operations and hormones to become women from girls’ sports.”
• Sixty-eight percent support “declaring that there are only two genders male and female in all government forms and programs.”
• Sixty-five percent support “eliminating all preferences by race in the hiring and awarding of government contracts.”
• Sixty-three percent support “freezing and re-evaluating all foreign aid expenditures and the department that handled them.”
• Sixty-one percent support “placing reciprocal tariffs on countries that have tariffs on US goods.”
As far as Democrats are concerned, the Harvard-Harris poll reports that the party’s approval rating has fallen to 36%, its lowest level in years. On the other side, 64% of those surveyed disapprove of the Democratic Party. In one remarkable finding, 33%, fully one-third, of Democrats disapprove of their own party.
Taken together, these numbers suggest that Trump, now in his second month in the White House, is moving forward at full speed with solid public support. Obviously he has detractors all over Washington, but he always has. Obviously he has courts trying to stop him, but he always has. And obviously it all could change, quickly or slowly. But right now, it’s not surprising that Democrats are having so much trouble getting their act together when it comes to opposing the president.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
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