Yes, his base likes him, but his overall numbers are terrible.
Recent polling on President Donald Trump has increasingly been covered in a way that emphasizes Trump’s high numbers with self-identified Republicans rather than his low numbers with the American public.
For example, a new poll released on Monday shows Trump underwater by a 52-45 margin and gives Democrats a 6-point lead in the generic congressional ballot. But it was largely touted for showing that among Republicans, Trump has a better approval rating than Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and George H.W. Bush ever managed to achieve.
In @wsj/@nbcnews poll of Trump, this: “Of the four previous White House occupants, only George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had a higher approval rating within his own party at the same point in his presidency.” https://t.co/hqIChGVm8R
— Ed O’Keefe (@edokeefe) 23 July 2018
By the same token, over the weekend, an Axios/SurveyMonkey poll generated the headline “Poll: Huge GOP majority backs Trump’s Putin performance.”
In fact, the poll showed about what you would think — partisanship heavily influences evaluations of events — but Trump’s performance at his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was overall very unpopular and likely even hurt him at the margin with his precious base.
