Jun.23

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Trump Approval Keeps Sinking

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll has Donald Trump's approval at 36% and his disapproval at 62%, for a net -26%. This is close to his low for Trump v2.0. Here is his Reuters/Ipsos approval rating for each term along with Joe Biden's:

Broken down by race and ethnicity, Trump's approval is 44% with white voters, 27% with Latino voters, and 9% with Black voters. It looks like most of the Latino and Black voters who backed him in 2024 have changed their minds. He is at 40% with non-college voters and 30% with college-educated voters. With men it is 39% and with women it is 33%. On the all-important economy, Trump's approval is now 30%. On the cost of living, he is net -45. And this poll is pretty much in line with most other Trump approval polls right now; excepting the one poll we don't trust that has him at 30%, pretty much everyone else has him somewhere between 35% and 40% approval. None of this is encouraging for Republicans.

Perhaps a better way to look at things, however, is by state. Civiqs has crunched the numbers and put together this map:

Here is the list of the 15 states where Trump is not underwater at the moment:

1. Wyoming: +24 points
2. Idaho: +16
3. Montana: +8
4. South Dakota: +12
5. North Dakota: +19
6. Kansas: +6
7. Oklahoma: +13
8. Arkansas: +8
9. Tennessee: +8
10. Mississippi: +2
11. Alabama: +13
12. West Virginia: +15
13. Indiana: +1
14. Utah: +1
15. Kentucky: EVEN

That is not a very good list. And note how poorly he is doing in the red states with the highest percentage of Black voters, namely Mississippi (+2) and South Carolina (-5). Clearly, Black voters are not happy. If they show up to the polls in force in November, that would be a big step toward a blue tsunami.

And now, a different list. Here is Trump's approval in the 13 states that have competitive Senate races this year (per Sabato's Crystal Ball):

1. Minnesota (Likely D): -26
2. Georgia (Lean D): -22
3. New Hampshire (Lean D): -30
4. North Carolina (Lean D): -13
5. Alaska (Tossup): -3
6. Maine (Tossup): -30
7. Michigan (Tossup): -19
8. Ohio (Tossup): -13
9. Iowa (Lean R): -12
10. Texas (Lean R): -13
11. Florida (Likely R): -11
12. Montana (Likely R): +8
13. Nebraska (Likely R): -4

This must have NRSC Chair Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and his colleagues going through antacid by the truckload. Trump is only above water in one of the 13 states, and he's only close to the "surface" in another two. If the blue team can win all the states where Trump is double-digit unpopular—and midterms are usually a referendum on the incumbent administration—then they would pick up 6 seats, and commanding control of the Senate. That is not probable, but it does mean that to hold the Senate, the GOP would need to hold onto at least three states where Trump is double-digit underwater, while also not losing the competitive races in Alaska and Nebraska. That's a pretty tall order. (V & Z)