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But, again your premise is still made up. Approval ratings vs. popular vote share metric is always compared in a timeframe leading up to the elections. That's how they're quoted.
Approval ratings do matter--leading up to the election. Every single president's popular vote share in modern times has come within one percentage points of the average of his approval rating right leading up to the election. That's a fact.
Four year average approval rating, especially after the election is never used as a metric to gauge the worthiness of approval rating vs. popular vote share. And, if Trump had an approval rating of 38% right before the election, he would have lost by 18-20 points.
If we truly trusted approval ratings we are to assume that if COVID never happened Trump would still have kept to Biden. Is that even a realistic possibility? Who votes out a President with a 3% unemployment rate for an 80 year old moron.
So no, there is no huge discrepancy between the election results and approval ratings.
You are quoting ONE poll.
538 is considered the gold standard by those on the left and since Trump announced he was running, they have had him around 40% and often times below that. For example Jan 2017-Jan 2021 they have Trump at 38% approval — never close to 50%.
The fact remains that consistent 35-40% approval ratings can still make for an extremely competitive national candidate. Therefore it’s logical to conclude that approval rating is largely meaningless as long as a candidate is at 35%+. Maybe even 30%+.
In the past, candidates like Carter and Bush who were in that same range were blown out.
Perhaps it’s now harder to accurately measure approval or perhaps there’s now more bias built into the polling data? Who knows.
Location: In a city within a state where politicians come to get their PHDs in Corruption
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BELMO45
If we truly trusted approval ratings we are to assume that if COVID never happened Trump would still have kept to Biden. Is that even a realistic possibility? Who votes out a President with a 3% unemployment rate for an 80 year old moron.
That's a different argument altogether, although I do agree, if it weren't for Covid, or Trump's combative approach to Covid, he'd still be a president.
Trump misread the situation, his tone and body language turned a lot of people of. He was bull in a china shop (as he always is), and the situation called for something a bit more subtle.
I always remind people that elections aren't a referendum, they're a choice. Orange Man could be widely disliked, but if enough people think Limp Di** Joe is going to take a hot steamy load on our great country, they're gonna go with Mr. Orange.
If we truly trusted approval ratings we are to assume that if COVID never happened Trump would still have kept to Biden. Is that even a realistic possibility? Who votes out a President with a 3% unemployment rate for an 80 year old moron.
It was Trump's election to lose. Good economy (besides the very temporary Covid crisis), crappy opposing candidate, and he had every opportunity in 2020 to unite the nation around the crisis like most presidents have done. He chose to be petty and combative, acting like a wolverine backed into a corner, not like a leader.
For most of the Trump presidency we heard dems claiming that Trump only had a ~35% approval rating — consisting of mostly far-right racist whackos.
However, the election was ultimately decided by ~44k votes over 3 states. And Trump received more votes than any sitting president in history.
Did Trump prove that approval ratings are hard to gauge or mostly irrelevant? I see no other possible conclusion.
The fact that we're seeing a brain-dead bumbling buffoon at 62% approval after Trump failed to break the 50% mark for his entire presidency definitely has me questioning the entire process of gathering data for approval ratings, election forecast polls, etc. Remember, if the polls were right, Biden wins Florida, Ohio, Texas and a crapton of states that he lost quite solidly. The polls were very wrong in 2016 and they didn't get any better in 2020. It's those same polling institutions that gather data to determine Presidential approval ratings.
It was Trump's election to lose. Good economy (besides the very temporary Covid crisis), crappy opposing candidate, and he had every opportunity in 2020 to unite the nation around the crisis like most presidents have done. He chose to be petty and combative, acting like a wolverine backed into a corner, not like a leader.
Actually, Biden was the ONLY candidate that the Democrats dared run. All the rest would have lost the Rust Belt to Trump. They'd have handed over more of the black and Hispanic vote. They needed somebody who had working class cred, and for some reason Biden has that. I don't think he really deserves it, but "working man's man" is how they've billed Joe Biden since forever ago.
Now if the news media had actually be unbiased and reported on just how far gone Biden's brain is, how racist he actually is and how corrupt his entire family is, then Trump crushes the guy. It sure is nice to have 95% of the news media in your back pocket, awaiting your orders.
Now if the news media had actually be unbiased and reported on just how far gone Biden's brain is, how racist he actually is and how corrupt his entire family is, then Trump crushes the guy. It sure is nice to have 95% of the news media in your back pocket, awaiting your orders.
As long as his family isn't elevated to cabinet positions and there's no funny business with them in the White House, I don't see how they're relevant to the presidency. Funny how much the right-wing media tried so hard to emphasize his son's drug addiction, which completely backfired. I'm sure ol Joe was kinda racist a few decades ago, but people change, don't they?
Like I said, Trump lost the election. I believe if he had spent 2020 keeping quiet and making a few key speeches he would have won. He and/or his handlers decided denying the virus and then fighting every single thing Democrats said or did was going to hand him the win. Sure the media was biased against him, but he never figured out that bickering with them constantly was just feeding them ammunition. BTW that same media, through their constant coverage of him, brought him to prominence and won him the 2016 election.
That's a different argument altogether, although I do agree, if it weren't for Covid, or Trump's combative approach to Covid, he'd still be a president.
Trump misread the situation, his tone and body language turned a lot of people of. He was bull in a china shop (as he always is), and the situation called for something a bit more subtle.
Trump was being destroyed by Biden in the polls though even in January and February 2020. So based on that he would have lost even without Covid. It’s almost hard for me to imagine that possibility but given how many people voted against Trump vs for Biden it’s entirely possible the result is the same. Anyone who based their vote on a pandemic that was going to end in mid 2021 anyway is an idiot
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