Just as national polls were a poor indicator of the 2016 outcome, they’re a poor indicator of what the politically meaningful numbers are today.
A typical national poll will have a lot of interviews in deep blue states with high populations — states like California and New York — the fact that those voters are negative toward Trump isn’t all that important because they’d be negative toward any Republican, they’re just slightly more negative toward Trump and it drive his numbers down.
The truth is Trump is still doing well among Trump voters, the ones who elected him and gave Republicans majorities in both houses of Congress.
According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, and it’s one of the more negative toward him so I’m not cherry-picking here, 81% of Republicans approve of the job Trump is doing. A majority (50%) of whites without college degrees approve.
What we’re really seeing in these approval numbers is a shocking and somewhat unprecedented polarization among Democrats. Only six percent of Democrats in that Quinnipiac poll approve of Trump’s performance. If you look back at Obama, even when his numbers where at his lowest he still had double-digit approval among Republicans.
Just like last November, when people failed to look beyond the national topline numbers and really understand what the data meant, we’re seeing a lot of crowing about Trump’s topline approval rating and not a lot of thinking about what’s going on to make these numbers.
Right now the voters who elected him are still with him and attempts to paint him as a failed President are about as useful as the sad bleating about Clinton having won the national popular vote. That’s just not how our system works and we’re not a country governed by the opinions of California and New York leftists.
Watch the full interview here