Wednesday, October 18, 2017

American Support for the Trump Agenda

An interesting recent poll by Gallup takes an interesting approach to the level of support that Americans feel for their current president, Donald Trump.  Rather than simply looking at whether respondents support Donald Trump or not, Gallup asked respondents the following question:

"How supportive are you of Donald Trump on a 100-point scale where zero means you do not support anything he is doing as president and 100 means you support everything he is doing as president?"

By asking the question in this fashion, Gallup was able to gauge how far Americans fall on either side of the political divide, a divide that seems to widen over time.

Let's start by looking at Donald Trump's approval rating from Real Clear Politics.  On an overall plus-minus basis, Donald Trump's approval rating looks like this since he took office in January 2017:


Now, let's look at how Gallup handled Donald Trump's approval rating by looking at the degree of support that he receives from respondents.  According to the poll by Gallup, Donald Trump's support level looks like this:


As would be expected, a majority of Americans either dislike most of what Donald Trump is doing or support almost everything that he's doing with about one-third of Americans having mixed feelings.  Again, as would be anticipated, among Democrats and Republicans, the averages fall at opposite ends of the spectrum as shown here:

- among Democrats, Trump's average score is 16 with a majority scoring him at 3 or lower.

- among Republicans, Trump's average score is 77 with 47 percent giving hi, a score of 80 or lower.

- among independents, Trump's average score is 40 with 37 percent giving him a rating of between 21 and 80.

When looking at political persuasion beyond specific party identity, the breakdown is even more telling:

-  Liberal Democrats - 13
- Moderate Democrats - 17
- Conservative Democrats - 28
- Non-leaning independents - 36
- Moderate and liberal Republicans - 60
- Conservative Republicans - 81

It is interesting to see that the support for Donald Trump is less than resounding for moderate and liberal small "r" Republicans.

Gallup's interesting approach to better understanding Donald Trump's approval goes well beyond the normal Democrat vs. Republican polarization in the United States and provides us with an even clearer viewpoint on the divisiveness that plagues America today.


1 comment:

  1. Mainstream media has worked very hard to place Trump in an unflattering light and this increasingly divides the American people. This means we continue to see a growing number of articles on the subject of Trumps "flip-flops" and his inability to get along with those he chose to bring about his vision. If voters who supported Trump become convinced he is playing them for fools it is likely they will loudly voice their discontent leaving him without a base. While some of this can be explained as a strategy change or that he is evolving it has and should raise concern.

    With Trump detractors eagerly awaiting the day when he fails and receives his comeuppance Trump best remember who his friends are and that in Washington he has very few of them. The article below delves into the ramifications for Trump of alienating his base.

    http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2017/04/trump-comes-across-bit-too-clever-for.html

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