In the key 2018 battlegrounds, Trump's support is as high as ever

[oberliner]

Ever since Inauguration Day, the public’s faith in the president has been eroding. According to the latest Gallup surveys, only about 38 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s performance, which is down roughly 5 points from February. Vox’s own polling, conducted in partnership with SurveyMonkey, shows a similar drop — from 46 percent at the outset of his term to 41 percent in July.

For the president’s critics, these slipping approval numbers seem like vindication. They show that Americans aren’t blind to the disorder in the White House — that at least some Trump supporters are second-guessing their president.

But what does this mean in practical terms? American politics, by design, has never perfectly followed public opinion. After all, Trump never had a majority of Americans rooting for him. He won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote. What’s important isn’t his popularity nationwide but his approval rate in key parts of the country.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/4/16085892/trump-support-battleground-districts

The importance of this cannot be stressed enough. National polls don't make the difference electorally speaking.

[DoodAbides]

1. I perused quickly so I am probably wrong. Trump is still strong in Trump Red?

And Trump support in blue areas is slipping?

Ya. About right, right?

[oberliner]

5. And in the swing districts

The ones he narrowly won that basically turned the election his way.

[DoodAbides]

9. That is what I was trying to find easily, and it wasn't readily available.

Still, it matters if we are talking about the five odd states out, their very rural area. It will always be.

[ck4829]

2. So, a government of all the people, by the people, and for people or a joke of a government

that is of, by, and for people who would rather have unemployment, an opioid crisis, and having policy people thinking it is somehow better to be shot by a Jason Dalton as opposed to a Muhammad than ever be told what to do by some liberal or minority?

This is the sad choice our country has to face.

We simply can not have both.

[leftstreet]

3. The author blows it at the end

S/he spends many paragraphs explaining how, nationally, Trump approval is bad. But, of course not in the few districts that might matter for the midterms.

But then concludes:

All of this seems to be another sign that Americans are divided, not only by ideology but by the information they consume and the company they keep. Trump approval might be declining across the nation, but not so much in the Republican enclaves that Democrats desperately hope to flip.

?? After spending all those words and stats showing us that Americans are NOT divided in their dislike of Trump, the conclusion is Americans are divided

??

[oberliner]

6. Some dubious conclusions

But interesting data.

[spooky3]

4. I read the article. It appears to me that the authors carved the data many ways before they

found something on which they could base a "new" story (Republican voters in close Republican House districts versus elsewhere), and that basis is very weak statistically. And, why the authors would consider districts, rather than states, as the unit of analysis when looking at the meaningfulness of approval of the President (vs. implications for House races in 2018) is beyond me. Districts do not determine electoral college votes.

The real story is that Republicans in general everywhere are sticking to their approval, as has been reported many other times. That is very troubling.

[oberliner]

7. I don't disagree

I do think the broader point, though, is a critical one. Namely, that the only thing that actually matters in terms of the electoral college is the swing state voter.

If a million more people in NY or CA decide they don't like Trump and will vote for Unnamed Democrat instead, it doesn't actually help us any (even though it would show up as a huge shift in national polls).

[spooky3]

8. Then, as I said, the authors need to break down the data by state, not by House district,

and determine whether trends there are noteworthy. That could support the broader point--or not support it.

[BootinUp]

10. Had a discussion with someone

about this article. I decided that , no, we shouldn't dismiss it, even though it's based on online poll data. And that the proximate cause is that a large group of T-rump supporters everywhere just don't like/hate people that are different than them (by their definition)