Donald Trump Approval Rating Shows No Effect From Mueller Report, He Remains Most Unpopular In Polling History
Donald Trump spent Monday and Tuesday taking what Politico called a “victory lap” after the report of findings by Special Counsel Robert Mueller failed to indict him for either conspiracy with Russia or obstruction of justice. But as polling data began to roll in on Tuesday, showing how the public responded to the Mueller report, the numbers did not show much of a victory for Trump at all.
In fact, as the polling firm Morning Consult reported, Trump’s popularity — or lack of it — among American voters remained “unchanged” after the Mueller Report, or more accurately, a four-page memo about the report by Attorney General William Barr, was made public on Sunday.
“Trump’s net approval rating was 13 points underwater — the same as last week,” Morning Consult said, in a statement released along with the poll on Tuesday.
The Morning Consult data showed Trump with a 42 percent approval rating, but a 55 percent disapproval rating, resulting in the 13 point negative, or “underwater” net approval rating for Trump.
One week ago, a Morning Consult survey also showed Trump at 13 points “underwater,” with a 41 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval.
Another poll released on Tuesday and conducted by Ipsos/Reuters asked the Trump approval question to a sampling of “all Americans,” as well as to Americans “aware of the (Mueller) report.” The poll found very little difference in Trump’s approval between the two groups.
Quinnipiac has released the first high-quality, national poll since the end of the Mueller investigation, and it shows essentially no change in President Trump’s approval rating.
Will be interesting to see if other polls have similar results. https://t.co/0SviGTvfvQ pic.twitter.com/TGpxvzY60l
— Kevin Robillard ?? (@Robillard) March 26, 2019
In the Ipsos poll, 43 percent of “all Americans” registered approval of Trump, while 42 percent of Americans “aware of the report” said they approved of Trump’s job performance. At the same time, 54 percent of all Americans said they disapproved of Trump, while 56 percent of those who were aware of the Mueller report registered disapproval. In other words, Trump is 14 points underwater with Americans aware of the Mueller report, but only 11 points underwater with All Americans, apparently indicating that the report has had a slightly negative effect Trump’s popularity.
Polling expert Nate Silver, founder and editor of FiveThirtyEight, said on his Twitter account that claims that the media had “overhyped” the Trump-Russia collusion investigation appear to be untrue. “It looks like most voters got about what they were expecting,” Silver said.
The statistically weighted average of all polls compiled by Silver’s site FiveThirtyEight also showed little effect of the Mueller report on Trump’s approval and disapproval rating. In fact, in the history of such polls, going back to 1945, no president has shown a higher disapproval rating than Trump after 796 days in office — and only one, Ronald Reagan in 1983, had a lower approval rating.
In the FiveThirtyEight average, Trump’s approval stood at 41.9 percent as of Tuesday, while his disapproval hit 53.2 percent, putting him 11.3 points underwater in the average of all polls.
