Trump At 50%? Not Really.

Looks like there's a new poll out by Rasmussen, and it shows Donald Trump's approval numbers are at 50%. For those of us who actually follow the news, this seems impossible. Who the hell are these prairie dogs who pop up out of their holes and signal approval for Trump before disappearing?

Furthermore, the Fox spin on this is that this improvement in poll numbers stems from his opposition to the four female congresswomen (the ones nicknamed "The Squad") he recently insulted, telling them to go back home. In a horrendous rally in Greenville, North Carolina, an energized crowd chanted "Send her back! Send her back!" drawing comparisons to the 2016 chant of "Lock her up!" According to Fox, this opposition

The president agrees with this spin, arguing in yet another insane Tweet that "The Squad's" opposition to him has backfired, and that he's not backing down.

Really?

Well, Real Clear Politics can shed some light and provide some sanity. First of all, the Rasmussen poll does not show 50%. Rather, it shows a tie of 49% to 49%, meaning that 2% of poll responders were undecided, and Trump still hasn't reached that magic "50" yet. But that's a technicality. The real insight comes from other polls done concurrently.

The same day the Rasmussen poll came out, Gallup released its own poll. Trump's approval rating was 44% approve, 51% disapprove.
Reuters/Ipsos released another poll that same day. Trump's approval rating was 44%. His disapproval rating was 54%.
One day prior, that is on July 17th, Politico/Morning Consult released a poll. Trump's approval numbers were only 40%. Disapproval rating was 56%.
Also on the 17th, The Economist/You Gov released it's poll. Trump's approval came in at 46%, and his disapproval stood at 51%.

In other words, Trump's numbers haven't really changed all that much. He's still around 45% approval, and can't really climb much higher than that.

Among the polls released this week, only Gallup's was done over all of July. The others polled people between the 15th and the 16th, or from the 15th through the 17th.

Rasmussen polled from the 15th through the 17th.

In other words, what happened at the rally on the 17th couldn't have significantly improved Trump's poll numbers because it hadn't happened yet!

Yes, the fracas with "The Squad" happened days before, but that didn't seem to change Trump's overall poll numbers one way or the other. This time, Rasmussen is an outlier. An exception. A black swan.

Yes, it's true that Trump's overall polling average is slowly, slowly improving. But the latest polling data comes in under the wire. Saying Trump's poll numbers are up because of this is a bald-faced LIE.

What will really indicate the effect of this will be the poll numbers which follow. If next week's polls show improvement for Trump, Fox News might have an argument.

I'm willing to bet they'll go down.


Eric

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