“I’ve been getting really good polls, some over 50%, except for one Fake Poll done by @ABC NEWS, which gives NO INFORMATION about the sample, R or D, or anything else.”
Nothing in that tweet is true.
Let’s dispel the easiest stuff first.
Even a cursory glance at the ABC-Ipsos poll Trump is referring to in the tweet — where his favorable rating sits at just 31% — reveals that Trump’s claim that there is “NO INFORMATION about the sample, R or D, or anything else” is flat wrong. Just scroll to the bottom of this page; there’s all sorts of information about how the poll was conducted and weighted.
Now, for the bigger falsehood in Trump’s tweet — that he has “been getting really good polls, some over 50%.”
While the first part of that claim is purely subjective — I don’t know what Trump considers “really good polls” — the second part is not. In fact, according to CNN polling director Jennifer Agiesta, Trump has never had a favorable rating over 50% in any methodologically sound poll. Ever. As in, when he was a private citizen and since he’s been President. Not. A. Single. One.
The best Trump has ever done? He got to 50% favorable in a 2005 Gallup poll. That was 15 years ago!
All of which is, well, remarkable.
Trump is the first president who has never broken 50% job approval in Gallup polling. The closest he came was in April and May of this year, when 49% of the public approved of the job he was doing, numbers that reflected the rally-round-the-President effect of the early days of the coronavirus. As the public has turned against Trump’s handling of Covid-19 — as the number of cases (more than 6 million) and deaths (more than 183,000) have soared — and the protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd, the President’s approval ratings have faltered. In Gallup’s most recent poll, conducted earlier this month, just 42% approved of the job he was doing, while 55% disapproved.
It’s also worth noting here that Trump, in his only run for political office, received 46% of the 2016 popular vote — losing that vote by nearly 3 million. (He has claimed repeatedly — and with no actual evidence — that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally for Clinton in 2016.)
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Simply put: Donald Trump has never been someone that a majority of the country voted for or thought was doing a good job. It’s why so many Trump allies are, quietly, rooting like hell for rapper Kanye West to qualify for as many state ballots as possible — thereby lowering the win number for the incumbent.
Donald Trump is our first sub-50% president. And if he gets reelected, you can be sure it will be with less than half of the country voting for him.
