Donald Trump averaged 41% job approval during his first quarter as president, 14 percentage points lower than any other president in Gallup’s polling history. Bill Clinton had the previous low mark of 55%. The average first-quarter rating among post-World War II presidents elected to their first term is 61%, with […] Read more »
Pessimism Might Not Be a Winning Bet for Republicans
A political lifetime ago, Ronald Reagan’s pollster seized on this question to frame the campaign’s argument during his 1980 presidential campaign: “Is the country headed in the right direction, or is it on the wrong track?” … In the New York Times-CBS News poll for July, 26 percent of respondents […] Read more »
Sanders’s Practically Unprecedented Success
By steadily increasing his support in national polls to the point where it now essentially equals Hillary Clinton’s, Bernie Sanders has crossed a threshold that few other challengers to a heavily favored front-runner have ever reached. But those gains still leave him facing a steep uphill climb to overcome her […] Read more »
Donald Trump Is No Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan is the Frank Sinatra of Republican politics — all GOP politicians want to be him, and all GOP voters long for someone like him. (Just Google “second coming of Ronald Reagan.”) Enter Donald Trump, the latest Republican candidate to be compared to Reagan. Specifically, Trump supporters — in […] Read more »
Can Anyone Beat Trump in the Primary? History Says No
Let’s say you’re a Republican who is looking with abject terror at the thought of a Donald Trump nomination. You look at poll numbers from upcoming states—Trump by six! Trump by eight! You read and hear about “vectors” and “glide paths”, and you start looking for reassurance that it’s still […] Read more »
Presidential job approval ratings from Ike to Obama
Perhaps no measure better captures the public’s sentiment toward the president than job approval. … We looked at Pew Research Center data going back to Bill Clinton, and Gallup data going back to Dwight Eisenhower. These ratings reflect, for example, how views of presidents have become more politically polarized, as […] Read more »