I was unhappy earlier today about all the media attention to some Arizona voters who told a focus group that they think Donald Trump is just dreamy. It’s the same old same old form the media who are once again working feverishly to pump up Trump’s popularity. But Philip Bump at the Washington Post had some interesting information that indicates that an Arizona focus group may not have its finger on the pulse:
YouGov measures the popularity of past presidents among all Americans. And a pair of professors conducts a survey asking members of the American Political Science Association to evaluate presidential “greatness.”
At the upper end of the spectrum, there’s general agreement. Abraham Lincoln is the most positively viewed president among both groups. George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt are near the top as well.
There’s some deviation on John F. Kennedy, who’s third on YouGov’s list and 10th among the presidential scholars. But that deviation is nothing compared with what happens at the other end of the spectrum.
The worst-performing past president among the general public is James K. Polk, to a significant extent because so few Americans have an opinion of him (quite justifiably). Historians, meanwhile, think the worst president on that measure of greatness was … Donald J. Trump.
No president has a larger gap between his rankings by the public and by the experts. He’s 20th on the public’s list (one place behind Biden) and 45th on the scholars’.
[…]
The average for Trump’s first term and Biden’s was under 50 percent, thanks to Trump. Trump’s second term has started a bit better — but his approval rating average at this point is still below everyone except himself, eight years ago.
There’s been reporting that Trump is pleased that a recent CBS News-YouGov poll showed his approval at 53 percent. His average is still below 50 percent, though, and that 53 percent is lower than Biden’s average approval rating at the same point in 2021. But one finds solace where one can. For Trump, it’s outperforming 2017 counts.
YouGov has also tracked Trump’s favorability (that is, views of Trump himself) and approval (views of his presidency when he’s been in office) since early 2016. You can see that his favorability ticked upward after the 2016 and 2024 elections and that his initial approval rating now is higher than his initial approval rating eight years ago. You can also see that his approval rating is already starting to slip downward.
Basically, Republicans like him but nobody else does. That does not translate to a ;public groundswell for DOGE, the Gaza resort, abandoning Ukraine, deportation to Gitmo and everything else. He is not popular, he just isn’t. The fact that he’s slightly more popular at this stage than he was in his first term is not indicative of a popular mandate. He won by 1.4% and a couple hundred thousand votes in swing states out of about 150 million.
I’m struggling to keep that in mind and keep the faith that the people aren’t going to stand for this. There were quite a few out in the streets today with grassroots protests. It’s just getting started.