Photo: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
There’s a natural tendency to assume that public opinion on Donald Trump’s second term as president is just a continuation of the partisan polarization that both preceded and grew more powerful during Trump’s whole era in politics. And without question, that polarization still exists, as two recent polls show. A May 5 Economist-YouGov survey showed 84 percent of self-identified Republicans giving Trump a positive job appraisal, and 91 percent of Democrats giving him a thumbs-down. A more Trump-friendly I&I-TIPP poll from May 2 showed 76 percent of Republicans approving of his job performance and 76 percent of Democrats disapproving.
The general downward drift of Trump’s job-approval numbers has mostly been attributed to self-identified independents, who are indeed souring on the 47th president. That’s shown by the same two polls cited above: Independents gave Trump a 34 precent approval rating at Economist-YouGov and 33 percent at I&I-TIPP.
But aside from the partisan breakdowns, there’s the issue of intensity of positive or negative sentiments toward Trump’s job performance, particularly given the importance Team Trump has always assigned to keeping the MAGA base psyched out of their skulls and ready to dance to “YMCA” at the drop of a red hat. Fortunately, Nate Silver has begun keeping up with intensity metrics in his polling averages at Silver Bulletin. And it’s clear what they show. As of May 6, 27.4 percent of Americans “strongly approved” of Trump’s job performance (16.8 percent “weakly” approved), and 41.9 percent expressed “strong disapproval” (9.6 percent “weakly” disapproved). Those who don’t like Trump are not at all wishy-washy about it.
That could matter not just in the world of small-dollar fundraising or body counts at protest events, but at the polls in 2025 and 2026. Whether or not “enthusiasm” matters as much as pundits think it does in high-turnout presidential elections, it matters more in off-year, special, and midterm elections where turnout is less automatic and media coverage is less saturating. The averages Silver Bulletin shows are remarkably similar to those found in the final ABC–Washington Post poll prior to the 2018 midterm elections during Trump’s first term, which showed 28 percent of registered voters strongly approving of his job performance and 43 percent strongly disapproving. Democrats picked up 41 House seats and seven net governorships that year. They’d sure be happy with that sort of outcome in 2026.
