What polls show about a very confusing political landscape

There are even surveys that have Trump’s approval rating basically equal to his disapproval rating.

Diving deeper into the data can leave one more befuddled, even when looking at the averages.

Trump’s approval rating with independents is lower than any president at this point in office. Yet he’s lost very little ground with Republicans since the beginning of the year. This is important because there are a lot of them (e.g. see the section below this one).

The average overall, regardless of how you compute the average, still does have Trump’s net approval negative. That’s where I think it is. Yet, I can’t guarantee it.

We’ve seen too many times in the last decade that the range of the results gave us a better understanding of the potential outcomes than the average did at pinpointing where things would end up.

Pollsters will almost always ask how people identify themselves: Democrat, Republican or independent. Then they’ll follow that up by asking independents whether they lean toward the Democratic or Republican side of the aisle.

Party identification is one of the fundamental variables to understand how people will vote. Most Democrats will vote for Democratic candidates, while most Republicans will vote for Republican candidates.

No wonder a lot of people took note of the Pew Research Center’s annual benchmark poll that was released last week that showed 46% of the country were Republican or leaned Republican to 45% who were Democratic or leaned Democratic.

That margin is no different from last year’s version of the poll, before Trump won the presidency again.

Pew’s data, however, isn’t the only data. I asked Quinnipiac University for their polls conducted during roughly the same period.

Quinnipiac shows a pretty clear swing to the Democrats over the course of the year. During the January-to-February period, Republicans (including leaners) held a 1- to 3-point advantage on party affiliation.

Democrats, however, were ahead by 2 to 4 points in the April and June polls. This included two 4-point edges in both June surveys they put into the field.

I don’t know who is right. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Democrats may be slightly ahead, though that’s not great on a metric where they have usually been ahead over the years.

[quote] Trump’s approval rating with independents is lower than any president at this point in office

I hope this is meaningful

Anecdotally I think Trump has lost everyone but his base. I think the economy and harsh Immigration policies have soured a lot of independents against Trump. Too bad Dems are still so unpopular themselves.

Polls are meaningless. We saw that last year when pollsters ended their careers with bogus polls.

Most polls are pretty accurate. They nailed the recent Dem primary for Mayor I think the Epstein’s mess has also hurt Trump. It’s been handled quite badly which is rare for him. He usually is good at changing the subject.

[quote]Polls are meaningless. We saw that last year when pollsters ended their careers with bogus polls.

This.

The 2024 election showed that polls are meaningless/irrelevant in the age of social media and have gone the way of the dodo, along with legacy media.

Republicans have realized all this, but Democrats are still stuck in the 20th century, relying on polls and legacy media.

They might as well be using landlines and newspapers, too.

[quote] Most polls are pretty accurate. They nailed the recent Dem primary for Mayor

That's because Democrats tell the truth to pollsters, whereas Republicans will lie to them, just to throw off the poll

I'm not sure why they do that, but they just do.

[quote] I think the Epstein’s mess has also hurt Trump. It’s been handled quite badly which is rare for him. He usually is good at changing the subject.

It's only because MAGATS, other Republicans, and the media are helping to keep it alive.

If it were only Democrats trying to keep the Epstein issue alive, Trump and Republicans could easily sweep it under the rug.

But since MAGA Conspiracy Theorists and other Republicans keep talking about it, the media is paying attention.

What bails out Trump is voters seeing Democrats as the worse option, like what happened in 2016 and 2024.

The Democrats have managed to get on the wrong side of public opinion on many issues. They have to focus on things the public cares about (economy) and ignore issues that are unpopular (certain social issues.) it can’t be that hard. The big problem is they’re losing Hispanic voters. They can’t win national elections without them.

Most polls showings are quite similar-Trump is a CRIMINALLY CONVICTED PIECE OF SHIT FELON WHOS TAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY TO KEEP HIS FAT ASS RICH AND OUT OF PRISON.