538: Trump Is The Most Unpopular President Since Ford To Run For Reelection

[crazytown]

Trump Is The Most Unpopular President Since Ford To Run For Reelection

Now that the 2020 election has gone from “next year” to “this year,” it’s worth taking a step back and asking a question that we first posed in early 2017: How popular is Donald Trump? After all, a president’s job approval rating can be predictive of his reelection chances, especially as November draws closer.

On Jan. 1, 42.6 percent of Americans approved of President Trump’s job performance, according to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker (52.9 percent disapproved). That’s a pretty typical number for Trump (although it’s worth noting that, since Jan. 1, the U.S. and Iran have taken actions that could shake Trump’s approval rating loose from that anchor), but ominously for the president, that’s the second-lowest FiveThirtyEight average approval rating of any recent president on the first day of their reelection year. Only Gerald Ford (39.3 percent on Jan. 1, 1976) was less popular — and, of course, Ford lost that campaign to Jimmy Carter.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-the-most-unpopular-president-since-ford-to-run-for-reelection/



Fox News Poll Trump's aggregate approval masks strong disapproval

[left-of-center2012]

1. Here's your link

Some may want to read the full source.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-the-most-unpopular-president-since-ford-to-run-for-reelection/

[crazytown]

2. Thanks.

Fixed.

[OhZone]

3. But can he get -

re-electoralcolleged?

[CrispyQ]

4. There's a GOPer in another district who is campaigning on getting rid of the popular vote.

Only the electoral vote would be announced publicly. Fucking sensitive little wackos.

It's hard to respect anyone who still identifies as Republican, the party has become so vile and anti-American.

[OhZone]

5. WOW!

They're just crazy now.

[TheRealNorth]

7. So would they have the State Legislature choose electors?

Fuck that shit. If they try to pull that, it will be torches and pitchforks time.

[Otto Lidenbrock]

6. And Ford came a couple of percentage points away from getting another term

Despite Watergate, pardoning Nixon and his own problems with the economy (remember WIN - Whip Inflation Now buttons?)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. If you look at the momentum he had he might have won if the election was a week later.

This after trailing by thirty points. BTW, fifty thousand or so votes in OH and HI in the opposite direction and he wins.

[Thekaspervote]

8. That's a start

[Sloumeau]

10. A few comments...

Regarding Truman in 1948, which Nathaniel Rakich of 538 mentions in the full article, Rakich fails to mention that the polling for Truman was skewed. The polls that were done for Truman vs Dewey were all telephone polls, which meant that they polled the more affluent people who had telephones. Poorer people, who tended not to have telephones, were not surveyed at all. Poor people went for Truman.

Newspapers were so sure of the polling that they printed "Dewey Defeats Truman" newspapers early, before the results were known. Because of this, thinking that a 39.6% presidential approval score will get Trump reelected is probably extremely wishful thinking.

Trump's best hope for reelection is that we are in a war when election day comes, because America has always reelected a President during a war. This is why he is trying to start a war with Iran. It is Trump's best hope of winning reelection, but if he starts a war, we will all know it, so even that may not work for him.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. This election will test the proposition that an incumbent with a "good" economy is hard to beat.

I truly believe there is an Electoral College majority who wants a retreat from crazy. OTOH I was equally convinced there was an Electoral College majority who wouldn't vote for crazy in the first place.

[crazytown]

12. 2004 sticks out for me.

Kerry lost that one as much as W won it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Your own chart shows W was fairly popular.

[crazytown]

14. W was the least popular winner on that list.

I don't rate 1948, polling was is it's infancy, and biased against Dems by telephone coverage.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

15. I'm not taking anything for granted ...

I'm not taking anything for granted and am trying to not get over emotionally invested in the outcome.

[crazytown]

16. Neither am I

but looking at Nixon's and Reagan's popularity on Election Day, sometimes changing the candidate would not have changed the result. Simillarly, the GOP didn't need Reagan to defeat Carter.

As you say, it the disapproval of the president, despite a strong economy, that marks this time out as unchartered.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. The oddsmakers give him a 50/50 chance. I give him a 40/60 chance.

Anybody who thinks this is a done deal either way is being silly.

[jg10003]

18. Carter won the electoral college by only 9000 votes

Carter won Hawaii by 3500 votes and Ohio by 5500 votes. if Ford had won those 2 states he would have won the EC while losing the popular vote.