Okay, we’ll admit it: President Donald Trump has slipped somewhat in a growing number of polls. We knew it would happen, though: It happens to all presidents, even those who win popular votes and the vast majority of electoral votes. And of course, Democrats have seized upon Trump’s declining approval rating with glee, pronouncing to anyone who will listen that they were right all along, Trump’s a ‘disaster’ and the country is going to hell in a handbasket under his leadership.
While none of that is true, of course, CNN’s enthusiastic data cruncher Harry Enten dropped another truth bomb on the Donkey Party on Thursday: Say what you will about Trump’s popularity, but he would still beat Kamala Harris if they had a rematch today, calling it a “major wake-up moment” for the president’s rival party.
“If Democrats think that at this particular point, just because Donald Trump is unpopular, that they’re going to run away with it like a Heisman Trophy winner – that is not necessarily the case. These numbers should be a major wake-up moment for Democrats,” Enten said. “When you match Donald Trump against his actual competition, Donald Trump comes out ahead…and that is why Democrats, in fact, cannot count their chickens just yet, because those eggs have not cracked at this particular moment.”
According to CNN polling, 45% of registered voters believe Trump is doing a better job in the White House than former Vice President Kamala Harris would have, while 43% believe Harris would be doing better. “This looks a heck of a lot like the election result, despite the fact that Trump’s favorable ratings aren’t too hot to trot,” Enten said. The New York Post added:
Surveys released over the weekend from CBS, ABC and The Washington Post, NBC, CNN and The New York Times showed Trump’s favorability plummet – with one claiming he has the lowest ratings at the start of a presidential term since World War II.
His sweeping tariffs, which economists have warned could reheat inflation and even trigger a recession, have been a particular sore spot. Nearly 90% of US adults said they believe the taxes will increase prices for American consumers, according to a new Gallup poll. But Enten argued that Trump’s unfavorable ratings don’t look nearly as drastic when viewed side-by-side with Democrats in office.
“The bottom line is when you look at Donald Trump in a vacuum, it’s one thing, but when you actually match him up against folks in the real world, all of a sudden his numbers look considerably better,” Enten said. When compared to Democrats in Congress, Trump’s primary competition, as Enten noted, is still outperformed by the president. According to CNN polling, 40% of registered voters trust Trump more than congressional Democrats to address the nation’s primary issues, with only 32% expressing the same trust in them.
So, is Trump’s support collapsing? No; it’s taken a bit of a hit, as expected, but it’s far from having evaporated completely. And the bottom line is this: Though he’s down a bit, Trump’s still thought of as a better option than Democrats, whose approval rating recently hit a basement-dwelling upper 20s.
Watch the short video clip of CNN’s poll results with President Donald Trump and Kamala Harris: