To tell it from opinion surveys, President Trump is failing to make a good impression on the American people in his first month in office. … But can we take polls at face value in the Trump era? …
Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017
Why might opinion surveys be selling the president’s popularity short? Trump has faced unprecedented levels of scorn from society’s tastemakers — whether they be newspaper editorial boards, celebrities or his fellow Republican elected officials. The hypothesis is that “shy Trump voters” react to this stigmatization by keeping their support for the president to themselves when being interviewed for an opinion survey. CONT.
Patrick J. Egan (NYU), Monkey Cage