Newsfront
Trump’s Polling Better Than Big Media Says
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the president’s demise are greatly exaggerated.
T BY J.T. YOUNG
he dispersed shot pat- tern of President Donald Trump’s approval ratings proves he’s still confound-
ing pollsters. For weeks, and especially since
Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on what he dubbed Liberation Day, the establishment media’s pre- vailing narrative has been that the president is plummeting in the polls. However, a closer look at today’s
polling reveals a far different story. There is no avoiding the fact that
Trump is a divisive politician. RealClearPolitics’ (RCP) histori-
cal average of his national favorabil- ity polling shows his first favorability reading, in July 2016, as 26.3%-61.3%. On Jan. 1, 2017, just days before he
took office following his November 2016 upset win, he was still under- water by nearly 4 percentage points. Even around the time of his 2025 inau- guration, Trump’s favorability was barely positive, at 48.1%-47.9%. Trump’s popularity has never been
a good predictor of his electoral per- formance or the public’s appraisal of his job performance. But if you listen to the establish-
ment media’s prevailing narrative, Trump’s divisiveness, his second term’s frenetic pace, and especially his tariffs have coincided to catch up to him.
According to RCP’s average of
Trump’s national job approval poll- ing, on May 12, the day the administra- tion announced a 90-day ceasefire in the tariff war with China (and before
10 NEWSMAX | JULY 2025
this hiatus could have an impact on his polling numbers), Trump’s differ- ential was 45.8%-50.1% — a net nega- tive 4.3 percentage points. However, a closer look at the 14 sur-
veys used in the RCP average paints a more complex picture. The net spread of Trump’s job
approval rating ran from a positive 6 percentage points (Rasmussen) to a negative 12 percentage points (News- Nation’s poll by Decision Desk HQ or DDHQ). Such a large 18-point dif- ference merits closer examination.
F
irst, let’s look at the very different results based on poll respondents.
Rasmussen Reports sampled “likely voters.” As the label suggests, these are the most motivated voters — those most likely to vote. Only one other (Trafalgar) of the 14
polls sampled likely voters; its net was a positive 2 percentage points. Therefore, averaging the two likely-
voter poll results, Trump’s job approv- al/disapproval rating was 49%-45%, for a 4-point positive margin. It is also star- tlingly close to Trump’s 2024 Novem- ber popular vote total. The next category of respondents
is “registered voters.” As the name implies, these are simply Americans who are registered to vote. Nine of the 14 RCP polls queried registered voters. The spread of these polls went from a tie on Trump’s job approval/disapproval (Quantus Insights and Emerson) to DDHQ’s minus 12.
Averaging the nine polls of regis- tered voters yields a net negative job
approval of 4.8 percentage points — virtually a mirror reversal from the likely-voter average. The last category of voters polled
is “adults,” simply those old enough to vote. Three of the 14 polls sampled only adults, and their results were all in negative territory: from a minus 5 to a minus 11 percentage points. Averaging these three poll results,
Trump’s net job approval is minus 8.7 percentage points — roughly double the average from registered-voter polls. Looking at the quality of the respon-
dents, there is a very clear breakdown from likely voters’ positive appraisal of Trump’s job performance (plus 4 percentage points); to registered vot- ers’ moderately negative appraisal (4.8 percentage points); to adults’ very neg- ative appraisal (8.7 percentage points). But what of the quality of the poll-
sters themselves? This too breaks down similarly. On March 25, 2025, ActiVote released its “2024 Most Valu- able Pollster (MVP) Rankings,” a rat- ing or “‘scorecard’ to indicate which pollsters did well in 2024, and which pollsters did not.” The breakdown is strikingly similar
to the breakdown by respondent type. With a lower score equating to a better polling performance, the two “likely voter” pollsters had an average rank- ing of 4.5. The nine “registered voter” poll-
sters had an average 27.4 ranking. And the three “adult voter” pollsters had a 33.3 ranking. Not only did Trump poll better
with the most motivated respondents, he also did markedly better with the higher-ranked pollsters. To paraphrase Mark Twain,
reports of Trump’s demise in the polls are greatly exaggerated. It isn’t the first time a general overview of polls has gotten him wrong. It likely won’t be the last.
J.T. Young is the author of Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left (RealClear Publishing).
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