A lot of us ignore Rasmussen Reports’ polling. It’s know to have a serious Republican house lean. It’s the “go to” pollster for good news for conservatives. Well, let’s just say “the best possible news”, because President Trump’s “net approval” from this Republican pollster is -17%.
Rasmussen calculates that differently than others. They use “strongly approve” minus “strongly disapprove.” It measure the difference in approval between groups that have a solid opinion, which is interesting. What the rating of -17% means is that 17% more people in the sample really hate Trump than really like Trump.
Is this unusual? It’s certainly terrible for a Republican, but also, it’s terrible compared to Rasmussen’s tracking of Obama. At this point in his presidency — a time when the economy was rapidly imploding — Obama had a +5% from Rasmussen. Obama’s lowest point came in August 2011 after the push to raise the debt ceiling. It was -26%.
When will Trump get to -26%? Has he bottomed out? It’s hard to say for sure. Trump would have to lose another 9 points — something he’s done in just the last two weeks. Still, it’s hard to tell how long it will take for him to find a new low. He’s barely spent any time with a positive approval rating, and that’s been mostly in the single digits.
It’s worth noting that Rasmussen’s rating had President Obama in the -10% to -20% range for most of his presidency. The only time he really ventured into positive territory was 2009 and about a week at the end of 2016. And this is why the left tends not to look at Rasmussen: if you did, you’d come away thinking that Obama was very popular until after his first year, after which he became disliked. You might wonder how a guy who hadn’t scored a positive rating a single day of the 2012 election managed to win it. This, by the way, would put you in the mindset of most Freepers and even the Romney campaign, who were completely shocked by Obama’s reelection.
Given that Rasmussen’s approval index roughly approximates the worldview of Trump’s base, I would say that he’s in huge trouble. Freepers who are currently praising Trump’s Machiavellian moves (pulling the AHCA was genius!) will be saying “I never really liked him” sooner that you might think. That means that we may go into 2018 with a substantial advantage in the voter base.
UPDATE: Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll: March 24th, 2017