Polls Show Donald Trump’s Base Weakening, Approval Rating In Red States Drops More Than Anywhere Else

After almost 250 days in office, Donald Trump’s overall, nationwide approval rating remains at a record low — well below every other president at the same point in his presidency since approval rating polls were first taken in 1945, more than seven decades and 12 presidents ago.

Trump’s nationwide average after 242 days of 38.9 percent approval across all polls is more than 14 points worse that that of his predecessor, President Barack Obama, at the same point. Obama clung to a 53.2 percent average approval rating after 242 days, despite being in the midst of a bitter and highly personal debate over health care reform that took a toll on his approval rating.

But while Trump’s nationwide approval rating provides the quickest and simplest snapshot of his popularity or unpopularity, a new set of state polls taken in each of the 50 states now provides a clearer picture of how Trump is currently performing on the electoral map, giving a better look at how he would do if a new presidential election were held today.

The results from those state polls reveal a worrying trend for Trump and his supporters. According to a study by polling expert Harry Enten of the data journalism site FiveThirtyEight.com, Trump’s approval rating has taken the hardest hit in “red states,” the states that have reliably voted for the Republican candidate in recent presidential elections — a clear sign that Trump’s popularity appears to be suffering the most in the states where, based on his performance in the 2016 presidential election, he should be most popular.

Read Enten’s entire article, detailing his study of Trump’s plummeting red state popularity at this link.

Two separate polling firms — Gallup and Survey Monkey — recently released their own Trump approval rating polls for each state, and according to Enten’s analysis, they show that while Donald Trump predictably remains most popular in the states where he put in his strongest performance in the November 8 election last year, those states where he remains highly popular are also the states where his popularity has dropped the most since the election.

For example, Trump’s single biggest drop has occurred in Wyoming, where Trump won with a 46 point margin of victory last year. But in the new state approval rating polls, Trump’s approval is currently 20 points higher than his disapproval — a drop of 26 points in popularity over the past 10 months.

According to the Survey Monkey polls, released last week, Trump’s popularity remains above 50 percent in 13 of the 50 states, with Wyoming being his best at 59 percent approval.

The Gallup polls, released in July, showed West Virginia as Trump’s strongest state, as he held a 60 percent approval rating there in the Gallup survey. According to the Gallup results, Trump’s approval was above 50 percent in just 17 states, with the same number of states also blasting Trump with approval numbers below 40 percent.

“The fact that Trump has lost the greatest number of supporters in red states is perhaps the clearest indication yet that he is losing ground among some form of his base,” Enten wrote. “If you think of his base as those who voted for him in November.”

In states that were won with a margin of at least 10 percentage points by Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, Trump’s popularity has also taken a hit — but by an average of only eight points. In other words Trump, who was unpopular in those states last year, is even more unpopular there today.

But in states where Trump won by 10 points or more last November, his approval rating has plunged by an average of 18 points, polls now show.

[Featured Image by Evan Vucci/AP Images]