It is not good news for anybody that Trump could actually have the approval of half the people asked.
He is an ignorant conman that doesn't have a clue or a plan.
That 50% could prefer an ignorant obnoxious lying style over any substance is not good news.
As I pointed out, it is actually now at 42%.
Also, it's worth noting that the 50% number angelo posted (again, from August for some unknown reason), was from a Rasmussen Reports poll, which is a notoriously
right-leaning polling organization. After the
2010 midterms, Nate Silver ranked them as the least accurate, with an average error of 5.8 points and a pro-Republican bias of 3.9 points. After the 2012 general election,
Silver ranked them at 20th out of 23 for accuracy and notes a Republican bias of around 3.7 points and an average error rate of 4.2 points. In
2016 they ranked slightly better (as they merged with another company for obvious reasons), 12 out of 19, but with an average error rate of 5.1.
Iow, that 50% could just as easily also have been around 42% when you compensate for error and bias. And in the
2018 midterms they predicted that Republicans would win the House over Dems (46% to 45%).
And then, of course, when you dig deeper into Rasmussen's
historical numbers, you see a consistent combined approval rating (i.e., "strongly approve" combined with just "approve") of under 50% for his entire presidency. There are only a handful of times (primarily in the first few months) that Trump ever breaks above 50% and then it's only by a few points.
And, then, finally,
WaPo notes:
Until February, Rasmussen polls conducted on equivalent days showed Trump with a higher approval rating [than Obama] only twice. But all of this obscures an important detail. Rasmussen has historically been much friendlier to Trump — and less so to Obama — than most other pollsters.
