… If it weren’t for the news media, Trump says, he’d be at, say, 75 percent approval. He said something similar earlier this week, claiming that without the Russia investigation, his approval would be at 65 percent because of how well the economy is doing. (It would not be.) Seventy-five percent, though? That’s a historic popularity-level number!
Quite literally. When have presidents been at 75 percent approval in the modern era? Well, there was when Franklin Roosevelt was winning World War II. …
What would it take to hit 75 percent? Well, Gallup tells us that 27 percent of the country identifies as Republican, 26 percent as Democrats and 44 percent as independents. Assuming Republicans hold at 90 percent, if independents approved of Trump at 72 percent and Democrats at 65 percent, Trump would be at 75 percent overall.
That seems unlikely. CONT.
Philip Bump, Washington Post