President Donald Trump got some of the best polling news of his presidency this month.
The day before the Senate voted to acquit him, his approval rating hit its highest level on record in the Gallup poll at 49%, with half saying he should be re-elected. Of note, Gallup generally gives Trump lower approval ratings than other pollsters.
Gallup also found that the GOP’s image was improving overall. It now has a 51% approval rating across all voters, up from 43% in September.
While the GOP is net favorable overall, it’s also net favorable among Republicans for the first time in years too. According to Rasmussen Reports: Most Republicans are finally happy with the job their representatives in Congress are doing, while Democrats are even happier with theirs than they have been in the past.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 62% of Likely Republican Voters now believe Republicans in Congress have done a good job representing their party’s values over the past several years. Just 29% think they’ve lost touch with Republican voters from throughout the nation instead. This is a dramatic reversal of GOP voter attitudes. In January 2019, 53% of Republicans thought their congressional representatives were out of touch with GOP voters nationwide. Prior to that in regular surveying since 2008, more than 60% of Republican voters felt that way.
The data shows that Republicans have historically been more critical of members of their own party than Democrats have.
Democrats over the years have always been more supportive of their national legislators. In April 2018, for example, 47% of Likely Democratic Voters said Democrats in Congress have done a good job representing their party’s values, while 42% felt they were out of touch with Democratic voters nationwide. But now 61% of Democrats think Democrats in Congress have done a job representing the party’s values, up from a previous high of 55% three years ago. Thirty-two percent (32%) say their legislators are still out of touch.
While the impeachment fiasco may have boosted Democrats favorability among their voter base (and only their voter base), most Democrats correctly believe that their side is losing. Most Republicans believe that their side is winning (but are not yet tired of winning).
More relevant to Trump – earlier this week Rasmussen also found that Trump would destroy Sanders in the presidential election. According to their survey, Trump would earn 50% support among Likely U.S. Voters to Sanders’ 43%. Seven percent (7%) said they’re undecided.
Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump won by an even larger margin. President Trump is the most popular president among Republicans in history, and thus will attract all their votes. While three out of four Democrats say they’d vote for a socialist, that still leaves a quarter of the party that may not vote for a nominee Sanders – and most independents wouldn’t vote for a socialist.
