NOTE: I thought about putting this into the comments of today APR, but it was too lengthy. Therefore, I decided to write a diary entry instead.
Thanks for this morning’s APR. I would just add one thing. I understand that statisticians prefer to take in data from all public polls when deriving an approval/disapproval value for the president. However, several of the public polls are not reputable. Republicans have set up some fly by night firms who push out shitty polls to pump up Trump’s approval numbers.
I think of them as mini-me Rasmussen’s.
There are always some public polling firms that are biased in one way or another. But more than a few of the Republican polling firms love to “flood the zone” with numerous poll results. Their hope is to add to data to the pool of the polling to skew the results in Trump’s or the GOP’s favor.
One of the worst offenders is Rasmussen. Others are Trafalgar Group, Insider Advantage, Harris Insight and Analytics, and Patriot Polling/Spry Strategies. The last listed is a newbie with no reliable track record of results, which is why it was created by Republicans. There are others who you might as well call “astroturf.” Those polling firms conduct push polls and other garbage that is included in the data set for public polling.
The primary aim of these polling firms is to skew the data toward a more favorable approval rating for Trump.
Therefore, Trump’s approval numbers are in actuality probably WORSE than we are seeing from the aggregate reporting.
Why is any of this important? I’m with Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark. There is probably a floor that Trump has because MAGA is a cult. That floor is there because those MAGA idiots will never abandon Trump, at least never publicly. She estimates that Trump’s floor is at 32%. Longwell posits that Republicans in Congress will not really break in significant numbers until Trump hits that number.
Consequently, every aggregate polling result that has Trump above that 32% floor ensures that all Republicans in Congress remain on the Trump reservation. As silly as that sounds, it all comes down to a few percentages points difference in Trump’s favorability to make all the damn difference to the cowards up on The Hill. It’s only when Republicans on The Hill have data confirming what they know in their bones already that any of them will start to scramble to save their political lives.
Essentially, a 32% approval rating for Trump means that all the other Republican voters who are MAGA lite have abandoned Trump. Those folks may just sit out the midterms, which is the most likely outcome. Some may even vote for a Democrat. But the bottom line is that Republicans in Congress cannot win reelection without those other Republican voters.
Now if we ever hit that 32% floor, I do not expect there to be a mass announcement from the GOP cowards of, “Trump is fucked, and I am done!” In fact, I expect no public expressions of a change in course from Republicans. However, Trump will start losing votes on things he cares about, or Republicans in the House or Senate will simply not bring up bills that Trump wants passed.
Also, do not be surprised to see some phony proposals from Republicans on major issues weighing them all down. We are now seeing “Trump Freedom Health Accounts” being served up by the GOP. There is nothing in those talking points that will help your average American on the fucking they will receive with premium spikes next year. In time, I expect there will be just talk without Trump’s name attached to “do something” about health care.
If Trump hits 32% before March of 2026, we may — MAY — see the House GOP take back its power over tariffs. But Trump has a counter plan being formulated where the White House will use some other statutes to keep tariffs in place. There has already been talk of this.
Anyway, my point is that the 32% Trump approval rating may happen sooner or is closer than Republicans think. And it’s because Republicans are participating in group think and reading inaccurate polling results that they themselves are producing. I doubt that Republicans will accurately figure out when is the time to bail on Trump because they have been cooking the polling books.
Lord knows I can think of one major Republican figure who is purposefully burying his head in the sand: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. He’s so used to lying about everything that I think Johnson does believe his own bullshit that Americans should “relax’ about affordability. And I bet it’s one big reason why more and more House Republicans are leaking to the media how much they dislike Johnson.
What do you all think?
