By their very nature, presidential approval polls are a trailing indicator. Even if completely accurate, they report data three to five days old. The estimable Nate Silver’s (fivethirtyeight.com’s) weighted average of presidential approval polls by its very nature is even more trailing of a "trailing indicator," as it gives weight to polls much older than that (no criticism intended).
Donald Trump had been enjoying a bit of a bump in his net approval ratings. But a new CBS poll out today reports nineteen-point negative rating: 38% approve and 57% disapprove. See www.cbsnews.com/… The CBS polling enjoyes an excellent A-minus rating from Nate Silver. CBS collected its data between March 8 and March 11. Of all the respected pollsters, this is the most recent. It will bear close watching if this is the beginning of a new downward trend. I suspect it is.
The topline shows that Democrats disapprove by 5-92 (net negative 87 points), Republicans approve by 83-14 (net positive 69 points), and Independents disapprove by 37-54 (net negative 17 points). These are disasterous figures for Trump — not just the Independent voter negatives, but the disparity between the Democratic solidarity (92% disapprove) and the Republican defections (only 83% approve).
CBS did a bit of issues polling. Trump is minus 2 points on handling of the economy, but by far the most interesting is the public’s take (per the CBS poll) on his handling of the Russia investigation. Only 31% approve his handling of the Russia investigation and 58% disapprove (net minus 27%); Democrats disapprove by 6-90 (net minus 84); Republicans approve by 67-20 (plus 47, compare to Democratic tally), and Independants disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Russia inquiry by an astonishing 29-56 (minus 27). This last figure gives me the most confidence (and the most I have had in a long time) that if Trump fires Special Counsel Bob Mueller, there will be a nuclear shitstorm that is both unprecedented and unimaginable.