First, if this thread already exists, my apologies; this one can close, and I’ll bump that one.
That said, I suspect I’m not the only one who obsessively checks fivethirtyeight, not least for its ongoing Trump Approval Rating graph. I try to figure out what’s causing the latest fluctuation, but I generally can’t figure it out, and thought it’d be a fun thread for folks to offer their own bloviations on the subject.
For example, this past week isn’t actually a shitty one for Trump, all things considered: although Moore lost, he’s largely gotten his tax bill through, and there’s the new (bogus) attacks on Mueller’s impartiality.
But Trump’s average approval is lower than it’s ever been, I think. What do y’all think about why?
To some degree he’s losing his novelty, I think. At least maybe. His shtick is less and less entertaining, and more and more grating, at least to those who aren’t already all-in for Trump.
Real Clear Politics also has a poll tracker. The numbers vary only by tenths of a point. RCP’s scale magnifies daily change, which is sometimes useful and sometimes deceptive.
Both show that you need to be careful about trends. Today 538 has it 57.5-36.4, a 21 point spread. Go back to August 7 and it was 57.4-36.6 or a 21 point spread. So over four months of absolutely continual turmoil, the net change is zero. Do the smaller trends inside and around those four months mean anything at all? Trump had been going straight down the entire month of July to that low, and then went up the entire month of August and September, before a sudden drop the last week. Why? I have no idea.
He’s been going down at a steeper rate in December, true. I’m not sure if that means anything, since he’s done that a couple of times before and bounced back. If the trend does continue I’d guess that it’s the new climate of treating sexual harassment seriously. So many men have been bounced from their jobs because of credible accusations despite early denials that it’s harder to accept Trump’s denials. But since Trump will not be losing his job because of them I wouldn’t be surprised to see them fade into his background along with the several hundred other issues that would sink a normal politician yet don’t affect him.
My WAG is he dropped due to some of his supporters being disappointed that Trump couldn’t bring in the win for Roy Moore.