July 20, 2018

President Trump's poll numbers have gone up in the days after the Putin summit.



That's from Real Clear Politics, "President Trump Job Approval." Click the image for a clearer, sharper version. Look at the dates and compare the same poll. The summit was on the 16th.

Economist/YouGov took a poll for 3 days, including the summit day and the day after, and got a -8 spread, which isn't high, but if you look at its previous poll, the number was -9, so it was a 1-point improvement. The Reuters poll is partly after the summit, and the number is -12, up from -16. He's also rising in the Gallup poll but there, the newest poll (at -9, compared to an earlier -15) is all pre-summit.

Why would this be? It might be that the Trump critics sound so antagonistic that they seem less credible (or less watchable) than usual. Connected to that is the possibility that people want better relations with Russia and want to feel hopeful about improvements. Maybe people sense that the President is the voice of the nation with respect to foreign relations and accept the reality that Trump is the President.

54 comments:

Pookie Number 2 said...

It’s the obvious insincerity of Trump’s critics.

Gahrie said...

Why would this be?

Despite what the Left thinks, the American people aren't stupid. They see what's going on.

Josephbleau said...

Everyone likes an underdog. I really enjoy it when the press is in gloat mode after a massive strike at Trump, and it just makes him more popular.

Michael K said...

As FDR said about Al Smith, "I love him for his enemies."

rehajm said...

There may be a segment of those tuned in that are rejecting the strategy of Trump’s opponents. I suspect it mostly has to do with the fact people have stopped watching.

rhhardin said...

It's unpopularism.

dreams said...

It's common sense versus intellectual yet idiots.

Jeff Brokaw said...

Trump's critics sound increasingly **crazy**, if you ask me. Seems like other people are feeling that too.

Jeff Brokaw said...

One game I like to play with criticisms of Trump is "You Misspelled Obama".

And 60% of the time, it works all the time.

JPS said...

"It might be that the Trump critics sound so antagonistic that they seem less credible"

If his opponents could just keep their crazy tamped down a bit, I'd have been pretty disgusted with Trump's performance in Helsinki. But after days of screaming headlines, and one relative or friend after another yelling "Treason!" on Facebook, I'm pretty well pushed into the Oh-give-him-a-break category.

It is getting to be amazing, the distinctions my liberal friends would now hate me for making. Backing up a few weeks: Separating kids from their guardians as they try to cross the border illegally is arguably bad policy and inarguably shit politics. It is also not the same as sending them to a factory designed and built for the purpose of killing them and incinerating them. But hey - only a Trump supporter would argue these are different. Must have a soft spot for the family-separation policy, you're defending it, aren't you? Might as well don the bright red MAGA hat.

And now we're three intolerable outrages later, and I need to keep quiet around work my opinion that Trump's moral equivalence talk is not treason. I don't like it. To me it sounds like Democrats throughout the second half of the Cold War, whom I also disapproved of - but that would be Whataboutism, I guess.

Jaq said...

Remember when the Republicans impeached Clinton? Backfired in the midterms, even though it was red meat for the base.

tommyesq said...

Proof of Russian meddling with our polls...

Ray - SoCal said...

The anti Trumpers came off as unhinged and over the top - traitor, kristellnacht, etc.

Most people believe talking to Russia is a good idea.

Same thing happened with the Kim summit.

Trump is coming off as the diplomat!

Compare this to what happened on the view.

Amazing how the msm is destroying their credibility.

SteveBrooklineMA said...

It’s the economy, stupid! Remember that? There are jobs out there, and gas is cheap. Someone at the DNC fell for one of those “update your password” emails. Big deal, we all get those. What difference does it make who sent it? If it wasn’t the Russians it was someone else.

Jaq said...

Next thing you know, Trump is going to hand Syria to Putin on a silver platter. Oh wait, that was Obama.

Martin said...

Looks more like "flat" to me.

wildswan said...

I'm not surprised that people are now disregarding massive over-the-top propaganda strikes. Only the authors of those strikes really believe such methods work as they used to; and they so believe, only because their jobs depend on persuading their masters that old-time propaganda is effective. The actual takeaway is massive publicity for the fact that Trump is meeting with Russia and looking for a deal and that looks good. The same thing happened during the election: Trump enemies completely triumphed in producing negative stories about him, thus destroying him as a candidate (they said and believed); and then Trump won. They still haven't figured out why and are still using the same old, same old to achieve the same old, same old non-result. There's a certain specific kind of propaganda that used to spread easily and affect most people predictably. Not now. Some are still listening, some are walking away in a steady trickle and some are permanently immunized against that type of lie. Maureen Dowd is in one group; her own brother Kevin is in another as her opinion pieces show. The interesting question is: what is making the difference among these groups, a difference between a brother and a sister, between friend and friend?

Jaq said...

It's a down trend or flat or an up trend. It all depends on where you set the time frame. Global Warming alarmists have been using this quality of time series for a long time. Measuring all temperature changes from the coldest decade of the 20th century, the 1970s. Remember the "global cooling" scare?

What's clear is that the more cowbell thing isn't really working. Neither is turning it up to eleven. We had one poster here, who seems to have left, who said that he automatically tuned out anything bad he heard about the Kennedys, including the actions of a man who is known to have caused the death of a "date."

TRISTRAM said...

Running gag/tag at Instapundit: "All they have to do is not act crazy"

And they can't help themselves (like the harpy on the The Shrews ... err View)

Mark said...

Most of what you are talking about is near or within the polls margin of error.

Also, weren't all the polls wrong last election?

Jaq said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jaq said...

Hah! Helsinki summit was equivalent to 9-11 or the Cuban Missile Crisis. Democrats say so! Who would tune out that kind of nonsense?

TRISTRAM said...

"Hah! Helsinki summit was equivalent to 9-11 or the Cuban Missile Crisis. Democrats say so! Who would tune out that kind of nonsense?"

And the Russians hacking was "Our Peal Harbor" No, really. That first one didn't count. ant 9/11/2001 was before anyone whose opinion I value was born.

Jeff Brokaw said...

This probably has little to do with the poll numbers, but those who care about actual evidence leading to the right conclusion need to read Julian Assange, CrowdStrike, and the Russian Hack That Wasn’t which does a deep dive with lots of links into all the moving parts (DNC, media, Podesta phishing scam, Trump oppo research, allegations of Russian hackers, Guccifer 2.0) and the specific timeline of March 2016 and then mid-June. It does not paint a very impressive picture.

The evidence points to the conclusion that, yes, Russians did "hack" John Podesta's emails with a phishing scam, which he fell for because he's apparently not that bright (and strictly speaking, that is not even really "hacking"). That's about it.

The DNC story is likely made up bullshit with sketchy evidence; Guccifer is apparently mentioned 22 times in the 27 page indictment (according to Thau).

None of this passes the smell test.

Anne in Rockwall, TX said...

"Also, weren't all the polls wrong last election?" asks Mark.

It makes me wonder if the pollsters have changed any of their methodology to improve accuracy.
I haven't heart anything about them making any changes, but I might have missed it. I would think after their massive miss on 2016, they would.

Does anyone know?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The American people “accept reality” much more easily than the subset of Progressives, whom have labeled themselves the “reality based community,” can or do.

Darrell said...

Democrats and LLRs B Crazy.

And unbelievable.

Browndog said...

Yesterday I read that Trump dropped 4 pts. following the summit. I wasn't surprised, and assumed it to be correct...kinda.

MayBee said...

The only sane thing to do is to back away from watching news. I don't know how anyone can watch CNN or CBS or NBC without feeling a pit in their stomach.

Sal said...

He's being treated unfairly by boorish, low-IQ journalism majors so people are defending him.

Lance said...

Another way to look at the numbers: Trump's favorability has benefited from the positive economic news, and would be even higher had he kept his mouth shut about Putin.

GRW3 said...

Interestingly, all the 'evidence' the Russians hacked the DNC computers was provided by a third party, not the FBI. This third party, located in the Ukraine as I understand, was hired by the DNC. But lets just say the Russians did hack it. Didn't the media set the metric that it doesn't matter where the information comes from with Daniel Ellsworth, after stealing docs from the Pentagon, through the Snowden carrying things to the Kremlin.

So the Russians hacked the DNC? Did they do any of the unethical things revealed from that release? Nope that would be the DNC. Did they go in and cancel plans to go to the Midwest to campaign? Did they insert the whole deplorable paragraph into her teleprompter? Nope, nope.

Really, it's pretty certain they thought she was going to win. If they did it (and don't forget that we just learned that a key Bernie campaign guy has strong ties to the Ukraine) the release of information was to tenderize HRC and remind her they have the 30K+ emails that are still missing.


wwww said...


On Polling. When looking at Averages and not just a few polls...

Look at the all inclusive dates. Waiting is necessary. I know people don't like to do that but...

For accurate info on how the average responds to a specific news event...one needs to wait for the polls to stop including, in the average, the days before the event has happened.

Many polls are in the field for a couple of days.


exhelodrvr1 said...

"Why would this be?"

You left out the biggest reason - a majority of the people realize that whatever the Russians tried to do, it had no effect on the outcome of the election, and there obviously wasn't any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. So the "meddling" should be treated as it always has been - something that everybody, including us, does, and not a significant factor in relations with the perpetrating nation.

wwww said...



If I was trying to figure out how it was playing with the public, I would look at the response among self-identified Independent voters.

MikeR said...

Don't think they've gone up. They've stayed pretty much the same, after going down a month or so ago. Stats always bounce around a little within their error bounds.
Still, they have stayed pretty steady, and that's significant too.

MayBee said...

You left out the biggest reason - a majority of the people realize that whatever the Russians tried to do, it had no effect on the outcome of the election, and there obviously wasn't any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

It's odd how the further away we get from the election, the "worse" the "meddling" becomes. But we aren't learning more about what the Russians did. And we aren't getting madder and madder at Obama for doing nothing. We are just going more and more off the rails. And by "we", I don't mean me.

wwww said...

But we aren't learning more about what the Russians did.


I dunno. It's not like there isn't News & new info coming at the public.

I learned more from the indictment. I did not know the Russians stole 500,000 partial SS numbers and addresses from Illinois voters.

Maria Buttina is news.

People were alarmed about the suggestion American citizens could be "given"...what does that mean?...to a antagonistic state & dictator who wants to kill them.

The criticism of Article 5 is alarming for some Americans.

Soviet nerve agent recently killed citizens in the UK. Putin's people are involved.

That said...Many people do not vote on the basis of geopolitics. Many people to not care or follow it. I suspect the family separations of young children will depress support more over the medium & long term.

wwww said...

And we aren't getting madder and madder at Obama for doing nothing.


But it's not consistent with history to expect the public to respond like that.

In politics, the majority of people don't look back or think about longer chains of causation. They respond to immediate events in the present day.

Bruce Hayden said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Phil 314 said...

I’ve stopped being surprised since 11/9/2016.

Dude1394 said...

It could be that few Americans believe our crooked intelligence and doj agencies either. I know I think they are corrupt as ****.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

It's odd how the further away we get from the election, the "worse" the "meddling" becomes

Russian meddling is the fallback narrative to Russian collusion. It's ad admission that "collusion" isn't working out.

PaoloP said...

Come on, anybody in the world understands that it was a ploy prepared to frame Trump in a bad light: the indictment of 12 Russian officers a few days before the meeting, the immediate calls to avoid the meeting, the questions of the press, the ridiculous reactions (Pearl Harbor!, Kristallnacht!), the sudden love by the left for the CIA and the FBI...
Trump asked for the sole thing which could clarify the facts - evidences about the server: where it is, what are the actual proofs of Russian hacking, etc.
But, this is not urgent neither for the Intelligence Service nor for the press. I wonder why (cough, cough).

Comanche Voter said...

One strategy for parents dealing with irrational three year olds having a perpetual temper tantrum is to just tune the little boogers out. That of course means that the parents are inflicting the awful scene on innocent bystanders. But self preservation requires that you do that once in a while. And Messrs. Brennan and Strozk have revealed such much nastiness that you just have to ignore them for a while.

Anonymous said...

I read the transcript of the Helsinki press conference. If you read the words there was one sentence- that Trump "corrected"- which you might question. Everything else made sense and was essentially non-controversial, unless you are from the MSM. He did ask about the DNC server which still hasn't been reviewed. He was absolutely right.

Now we have Mueller prepared to give Tony Podesta immunity in order to nail Manafort. ( They were partners in the project at the time of Manafort's supposed crime.) Anyone see a pattern here.

Yancey Ward said...

The public is tuning it all out by this point. The media that is most deranged is simply preaching to the choir that consists of people like Inga and Chuck- everyone else doesn't give a shit, and it shows in that the polls are set in concrete for Trump, and have been since far before the election itself. Here is thing to remember- Trump's approval ratings have been at today's level since his inauguration, and yet he got elected somehow. Because of the media's animus, I am just assuming these popularity polls- for whatever reason, bias, Trump's support being less willing to talk to pollsters, etc.- are underrepresenting Trump's approvals by 3-5%.

You can go back to the election to verify this, too. Clinton was leading in the polling almost the entire way, and by amounts that were outside the reported margins of "error", but in the end it became proven that Clinton's support was highly concentrated inside CA and NY. All of those polls missed that, and the approval polls no doubt are doing the exact same thing.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Womp Womp...

Big Mike said...

Khesahn is right. Every so often the media brews up a shitstorm over something Trump says — Charlottesville was among the first — where it is absolutely clear that no matter what he actually said, a coordinated collection of Dumbocrats, Never Trumpers, and media talking heads were primed to go berserk. More people are catching on, and revisiting some of the past shitstorms.

Law of unintended consequences bites lefties again!

TRISTRAM said...

Ooh, I have him now. His "lawyer" taped him discussing something that is almost certainly legal (but it might not if we squint and get the right judge), and it has been leaked. He's doomed!
/Wile E. Coyote, Esq. (aka, the Media, Twitter, and The Smart, Virtuous People Who Care That Much!)

Drago said...

I can't wait to see what next week's "Worst Thing Ever To Happen" will be, after the previous 317 "Worst Things Ever To Happen" have all failed.

hstad said...

Sorry AA, your consistent go to citations of NY Times articles is a non-starter! Today's media is not interested in imparting information to its clients. It is full board driven by one issue - how do we survive the cataclysmic disruption of our industry. Being a consumer of their product - so far I'm not impressed with their business model. This business model subscribes to the belief that the louder you scream and the more you lie strategies will hold our clients. That may be correct over the short term like a couple of seconds. The question I have for all media outlets, what will you do after Trump leaves office - that my friends is the 'end of the world' scenario for the media.

Josephbleau said...

The rule of the Post and the TYmes is that, no matter how illegally the package was obtained, the press can release it with immunity. So if the CIS hacked the DNC is it not all good? The Pentagon Papers were.

Mike said...

His polls aren't coming up. You're looking at tiny tiny variations. If you look at the average, it's basically been flat.