President Donald Trump has the highest approval rating of any President among Republicans – and his popularity is growing among non-Republicans too in the key battleground states that will determine the 2020 election.
As I wrote earlier in the week, when Trump spoke in Ohio, a poll of attendees found that “20.9% of attendees identified as Independents.” Furthermore, 21.9% of attendees were Democrats (against an average of 23% at Trump rallies). In other words, roughly 43% of attendees were either Democrats or Independents. Ohio is a particularly relevant state because no president has won the presidency without winning Ohio since 1964.
When Trump spoke more recently in the state Hillary Clinton didn’t dare visit, a majority of attendees were not Republicans. As Red State’s Elizabeth Vaughn reports: the same statistic from Trump’s Tuesday night rally in Wisconsin can only be described as staggering. 57.8% of registrants identified as either Democratic or Independent. It’s way too soon to characterize the jump from 43% in Ohio last week to 58% in Wisconsin this week as a trend, but how many Republicans are showing up at Democratic rallies?
It’s not just your perception that the Democrat Party is becoming increasingly left-wing. While the GOP has remained ideologically consistent since at least the 1980s, the Dems have veered further and further left, to the point where a self-described socialist is a series contender in their primary. As recently as 1994, an equal share of Democrats identified as conservative and liberal (while barely any Republicans ever identified as liberal). Now the party’s range of ideology stretches from liberal to socialist.
Their party has lost any wide appeal it once had to some – and deservedly so. Maybe the Democrat nominee will bother to visit Wisconsin this time around – not like it’ll make a difference.
