Weekly political update – Where news & perceptions meet reality
Bottom Line: This is your weekly reality check. What's really going on with public opinion of the president and our view of the direction of the country? Here it is...
- Trump's lowest rating: 37% approval (8/4/17)
- Trump highest approval rating: 45% approval (6/7/19)
- Trump's current rating: 43% approval
President Trump’s rating is exactly where it was three weeks ago at the time of my last update. It pretty much tells you that the noise of the day isn’t impacting one’s feelings about the President to the extent that perhaps many in the news media would like. We’re now nearly two weeks into media’s effort, in conjunction with Democrats, to convince you that the economy is crashing. During this time, we’ve been told that his foreign policy strategy is chaos and that mass shootings are his fault (despite the shooters being Democrats btw). All that’s missing is a literal kitchen sink. But here’s the thing. It gets back to something I’ve talked about for years.
You can lie to people about issues and what may or may not happen based on policy outcomes, and they might believe you for awhile until they discover the truth...but you can’t successfully lie about a job someone has or what is or isn’t in their wallet. We have near record low unemployment, record high wages and unprecedented opportunities in the workforce right now. People get it. Yes, there’s a lot of turbulence to President Trump’s foreign policy approach but he ran on putting America first, and unlike most politicians who say stuff to get elected and then cave once they do – he's fighting for what he ran on and believes. After all – he's the chosen one. Which still has me laughing out loud. Especially when media types still don’t understand that he was messing with them with that comment. Hilarious.He’s not without his issues or concerns.
Presidential election cycles with incumbent presidents running for re-election are mostly a referendum on their performance. Based on President Trump’s performance on the economy his approval ratings would/should ordinarily be well north of 50%. That it’s not shows you the difference based on his personality. I’m wondering if there aren’t some people that would be willing to vote for him again today based on policy that say they don’t approve of his performance because they don’t care for the way he conducts himself.
It’s been the case throughout his term thus far, that the more informed and engaged someone is politically, the more likely they are to approve of President Trump. That remains the case once again this week.
- Adult only samples averaged: N/A
- Registered voters: 42%
- Likely voters: 48%
What you never hear reported are the ratings of the Democratic leaders opposing him. Let’s just say they’d need a huge push of support to simply catch President Trump’s approval ratings. Here’s the latest...
- Pelosi: 36%
- Schumer: 27%
Pelosi trails President Trump’s approval by seven points and Schumer by 16. It’s not exactly as though people are picking up what they’re putting down.
Looking at the direction of the country this week...
Where we stood on Inauguration Day:
- Right Direction: 30%
Today:
- Right Direction: 34%
Overall, we’re 4% collectively more optimistic than we were during the Obama administration.