Trump's approval and our view of the direction of the country for July 20th
Bottom Line: This is a weekly story to get a reality/temperature check regarding what's really going on with public opinion of the President and our view of the direction of the country. First here's the high point, low point and current ratings for President Trump...
Trump's lowest ratings: 37% approval and 59% disapproval: -22% (8/4/17)
Trump highest approval ratings 45% approval and 43% disapproval (1/27/17): +2%
Trump's current ratings: 44% approval and 53% disapproval: -9%
Weeks like this one are especially instructive when it comes to the validity of tracking the President's approval rating to infer what's relevant to most Americans and what alters their views. Based on the hysteria by the media/left this week after the Helsinki Summit you'd perhaps be led to think that President Trump's ratings would take a significant hit. Instead – President Trump's approval ratings is exactly where it was a week ago despite five new accredited polls rolling in this week. The only change is a 1% increase in his disapproval.
Once again, the media's depiction of the Trump administration's policies doesn't equal what we're seeing in the polling averages. One thing that is a bit different this week is the rating based on sampling. We have as much parity between voters as we've had over the past year.
With adult only samples his rating over the past week averaged: 43%
Registered voters: 44%
Likely voters: 45%
For comparison's sake President Obama's average approval rating on this date in his second year in office was 47% - three points higher than President Trump's rating but with likely voters – 45% which is the same.
Looking at the direction of the country this week...
Where we stood on Inauguration Day:
Right Direction: 30%
Wrong Track: 59%
Net: -29%
Last Week:
Right Direction: 38%
Wrong Track: 54%
Net: -16%
Today:
Right Direction: 39%
Wrong Track: 54%
Net: -15%
Change: +14% under Trump & +1% over the previous update.
And yet another reminder that the media/leftist freakout factor isn't representative of change in this country... We're actually slightly more positive on our view of the direction of the country this week. And that as the late great one would have said – is the rest of the story...
Until next week...