By Aaron
Blake August 29
Polling Donald Trump is one of the most difficult and
confusing exercises in modern politics. In Trump, we have a guy who won the
presidency by surprisingly beating the polls in key Rust Belt states, of course.
We also have a guy who maintains the loyalty of his base despite major flaws
that this base readily acknowledges. As I wrote in June 2016, nearly half
of Trump supporters — 46 percent — said one or more of the following: He
had made
a racist comment, was prejudiced and/or was unqualified to be president. Not
half of all voters; half of his supporters.
I wouldn't be the first to argue that those voters stuck by
Trump because of rank partisanship, distaste for Hillary Clinton
and emphasizing other priorities. But a
new poll from the Pew Research Center shows just how conflicted Trump
voters are these days about as well as any poll I've seen. And despite all
those hot takes about how Trump's penchant for controversy represents some kind
of multidimensional chess game, the poll shows the damage continues to be
done. Trump's base clearly has reservations about him, and those
reservations are causing it to deteriorate slowly — albeit more slowly than
people perhaps thought.
Pew asked American adults how they felt about Trump's
conduct in office: Whether they “liked” it, had “mixed feelings” or “didn't like
it.” It won't surprise you to see about 6 in 10 (58 percent) don't like it; that
tracks with the number of Americans who disapprove of Trump overall.
The other two pieces of the pie are where things get
interesting. According to Pew, another 25 percent of American adults say they
have “mixed feelings,” and just 16 percent “like” it. Only about 1 in 6 voters
say they like the way Trump has conducted himself as president.
Even among Republicans and GOP-leaning voters, just 34
percent “like” Trump's conduct. About 1 in 5 (19 percent) say they don't like
it, and a plurality of 46 percent say they have “mixed feelings.”
The results hark back to a July Washington Post/ABC News
poll, in which 70
percent of Americans described Trump's behavior as “unpresidential” and
just 24 percent said it was “fitting and proper” for a president. But in that
poll, a majority of Republicans — 54 percent — still said Trump's behavior was
“fitting and proper.”
So the old poll showed 24 percent of adults signed off on
Trump's conduct, and the new one puts that number at 16 percent. Part of that
difference undoubtedly owes to how the question was asked, with The Post-ABC
poll initially supplying two options and the Pew poll giving three. (Poll
respondents are often tempted to take a more middle-ground position when given
three options.) But both show basically the same thing: A huge amount of
ambivalence about Trump's behavior, even among his base.
This ambivalence also showed up during the campaign. In late
August, Quinnipiac University asked whether people who planned to vote for Trump
were doing so because they liked Trump, because of party affiliation or because
they opposed Clinton. Just 25
percent picked the “like Trump” option.
By September, it was down
to 23 percent. At that point, three-fourths of likely Trump supporters
(74 percent) said their vote wasn't really an endorsement of him so much as
voting for a party and against a candidate they despised.
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Those voters followed through and supported him, and most
will say they approve of him today when given a binary option. But when you
provide them a more nuanced response, their reservations become clearer. And
this new poll shows a strong majority of the GOP base has at
least some significant reservations. That's a pretty stunning commentary on
where Trump's presidency stands today — a larger amount of ambivalence than
perhaps any poll to date.
Play Video 0:59
Trump's approval rating lags even among key supporters
President Trump likes to trumpet his "tremendous" support and
strong base, but polls show that his approval rating is declining, even among
key demographics that voted for him in 2016. (Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo:
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
These and other polls continue to suggest all of the
distractions and the tweets continue to take their toll on his presidency. The
antidote to all of that during the campaign was partisanship and Clinton; the
antidote today seems to be a strengthening economy and a mutual dislike for the
Washington establishment and the media.
But if you ask the question the right way, you can learn some
pretty revealing things about Trump's base. And looking at a poll like this, you
have to wonder how Trump might be doing as president if he just set aside the
constant provocation and controversy-stoking.
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Aaron Blake is senior political reporter for The Fix.
