Wednesday, May 10, 2017

THE ONLY NUMBERS THAT MATTER IN THAT NEW TRUMP POLL

The Washington Post's Aaron Blake reports on a poll that looks terrible for Donald Trump:
A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows Trump's disapproval rating rising to 58 percent — a new high in Quinnipiac's regular polling and the highest in a high-quality, non-tracking poll since his inauguration. Just 36 percent approved of Trump's job performance....

The Quinnipiac poll also shows the president's favorable rating — more of a personal measure than a job measure — dropping to a new low of 35 percent. The percentage of Americans who strongly approve of him is tied for an all-time low at 25 percent. And the percentage who strongly disapprove has reached an all-time high of 51 percent....
Who's become disillusioned?
Interestingly, the reason the numbers have ticked down appears to be the group that elected Trump in the first place: white, working-class voters. Whites without college degrees approved of Trump 57 percent to 38 percent in the mid-April Q poll and 51-39 percent in late March/early May; today they are split, with 47 percent approving and 46 percent disapproving.
However:
Republicans still haven't deserted him....
And that's all you need to know. According to the poll, 82% of Republicans still approve of Trump's job performance -- 63% of them "strongly". And 82% have a favorable opinion of Trump. Among Republicans, 85% think his first hundred days were a success; 85% think he's keeping his campaign promises; 83% say he cares about average Americans.

What this means is that, for the foreseeable future, you can forget about the Republican Congress approving a special counsel select committee to investigate Russiagate, and you shouldn't expect much from the Senate investigation. Impeachment? Totally off the table, unless Trump's numbers among Republicans drop a lot.

Republican officeholders rely on Republican voters to get reelected, and Republican voters are clearly still head over heels in love with Trump. If you can see that even in this poll, which is the worst recent poll for Trump, then there's no way Republican members of the House and Senate are going to consider doing anything to harm him right now. No Republican wants to be one of a small number of visible aisle-crossers whose deviation from Republican correctness puts Trump in the crosshairs.

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