June 22, 2017

A number of reports have noted that Trump’s approval ratings are unusually low, especially for a point so early in a term. The mystery to me is why they are so high, considering his obvious incompetence. The Gallup tracking poll, asking how Trump is handling his job as President, has showed an approval rating of as much as 45, holding steady in the high thirties since late May. His disapproval rating has been above 50 almost from the start, but there is no evidence of impending desertion, and continuing support from more than a third.

When asked by Gallup, between June 7 and 11, about Trump’s handling of specific issues, responses were as follows:

	Approve	Disapprove	Unsure
The economy	45	53	2
Foreign affairs	35	62	3
Health care policy	28	67	5
Terrorism	46	53	2
Immigration	40	59	2
Relations with Russia	30	66	5
Taxes	35	57	7
The environment	32	63	5
Federal budget	36	57	6
Relations with news media	34	64	2

That produces a comparable result, an average of 36.1.[29] He dropped below one-third approval on issues which have received the most attention, which is some reason for hope.

 However, polls — even assuming that they accurately measure opinion — and votes are two very different things. Republicans have won the four special elections for the House held thus far, including the contest in Georgia which has drawn so much attention. Granted, these are Republican districts, but the results do not show abandonment of Trump. They may, however, demonstrate a movement away from him or from Republicans. All four districts were held by Republicans previously and all voted for Trump last year. Here are the GOP margins:

State	House, 2017	House, 2016	Trump, 2016
Georgia	3.8	23	1.5
Kansas	6.8	30	27
Montana	6.1	15	20
South Carolina	3.2	20	19

In each case, there was a sharp drop off from the previous House election, and in three, a sharp drop from Trump’s margin. In Georgia, the Republican House candidate in this year’s election did better than Trump, but by a relatively small amount. Perhaps there is cause for optimism.

Whatever the message from those contests, Democrats need to do two things between now and November, 2018: decide on a message (and get it right), and work for greater turnout.

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29. All poll results from http://www.pollingreport.com/trump.htm.