Is Trumpism Failing? His Declining Poll Numbers Sure Suggest So

In a post earlier this week I noted that Trump had experienced a very dramatic decline in his standing in Rasmussen, his favorite pollster, dropping from 51/47 (+4) to 44/54 (-10) over the past 3 weeks.  Nate Silver’s 538 has found similar slippage, as Trump has dropped from 42.7/52.4 (-9.7) to 41.1/53.8 (-12.7) in just the past 2 weeks.  It is just hard not to conclude at this point that Trump’s big play of the last few months – tariffs, global saber rattling, border chaos, burying Mueller – hasn’t worked, and in fact is in some way contributing to his rather abrupt decline.  I review all this data and the points made in the last graph below in a new post today.

The media has failed to capture how fundamentally unpopular Trump is right now, and how much trouble he is for re-election.  His unpopularity is unprecedented in modern American history.  In a study released by NDN a few weeks ago, we found that this point in their first term, all post war American presidents had:

- Net approval of + 22.5.  Today Trump’s is 12.7.  He is net 30 points below the average of all first term post war American Presidents at this point.

- 72 days at -10 or worse approval.  Trump has had more than 700 days at -10 plus so far in his Presidency, or ten times all other post war American Presidents combined.

Trump is even in trouble in MI/PA/WI, the 3 states most critical to his success in 2016.  The GOP was blown out in these states in 2018, and according to Morning Consult, Trump has lost between 15 and 19 pts net in favorability in all three.  A new poll has him trailing Joe Biden by 11 points in Pennsylvania.  His America First policies have pushed the heavily Mexican American parts of the country significantly towards the Democrats in the last two elections, almost certainly putting CO and NV out of play, and AZ and TX very much in play for the Democrats.  A recent poll in Arizona had Biden leading Trump by 5 there.  And if Texas is indeed in play, it will be $200-300m problem for Trump – no small thing.

Incumbents very rarely come back from where Trump is today.  His Presidency increasingly feels like a failed one, and many more days like today and it certainly will be.