Poll of the week: A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS released this week finds that President Donald Trump’s approval rating among voters stands at 45%. His disapproval rating is at 52%.
This poll was taken during the first week of March, mostly before the coronavirus outbreak began to dominate the news cycle. This poll, therefore, gives us a good baseline to track how Trump’s handling of the crisis is affecting how voters view him.
What’s the point: The way voters perceive how Trump and his administration are dealing with coronavirus could go a long way towards determining his reelection fate. And we can track that through his approval rating in the coming weeks and months.
Trump’s approval rating is the most important datapoint to look at when judging his reelection prospects. Historically, an incumbent’s approval rating is highly correlated with his reelection odds. Even at this point from an election, presidents’ approval ratings are predictive of whether or not they’re reelected.
As it stands, an approval rating of 45% among voters on Election Day 2020 will likely not be good enough for Trump to win. One estimate from FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver gave a president about a 3 in 10 shot of winning with an approval rating of 45%. That, of course, would still give Trump a chance if the election were held today.
Of course, the election isn’t until November.
The two presidents with an approval rating of 45% or less at this point in their presidencies went on to lose: Jimmy Carter (45%) in 1980 and George H.W. Bush (39%) in 1992. That, however, is likely a simplification of Trump’s standing.
Gerald Ford (1976) and Barack Obama (2012) each had approval ratings of 47% at this point. Ford lost by 2 points, while Obama won by 4 points nationally.
If you were to take into account all of the presidents who have run for reelection in the polling era, Trump would projected to be about a 2- to 3-point underdog in the national popular vote. Given that Trump may benefit from an electoral college and popular vote split, it’s best to think of him as about a 50-50 chance of being reelected.
Therefore, even if Trump’s approval rating moves just a few points, it could make the difference.
And that’s something to pay attention to as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
It’s easy to say “nothing matters” in the era of Trump. But events have moved his approval rating before, particularly those that have affected some people’s day-to-day lives. Think back to the government shutdown in 2018 and 2019.
Whatever impact the coronavirus outbreak has on Trump may not be apparent for at least a couple of weeks. Trump’s approval rating didn’t begin to really move until weeks into the shutdown, for example.
Moreover, the ultimate increase or decrease in Trump’s ratings will likely take time to appear. It wasn’t until the right near the end of the government shutdown that Trump hit his lowest approval rating.
Whether Trump’s numbers move because of coronavirus will likely depend on whether Americans think their lives have been impacted, for better or worse, because of Trump’s actions. It’s easy to imagine a world where voters believe Trump has handled coronavirus response one way, but don’t think that it has impacted them directly. Many voters disapprove of a lot of Trump’s actions, but that doesn’t change their overall opinion of him.
For Trump’s numbers to move, he’ll need to be seen as responsible for something that changed voters’ lives.