Most polls give you interesting topline numbers such as “53% of Americans Approve of Donald Trump’s Performance in Office.”
That’s an interesting data point, but until you dig into the numbers and only if the right questions are asked do you get much of a sense of what issues are driving the numbers.
YouGov’s latest poll did something interesting: they asked how much people trust Trump to deal with issues of importance to them, and the results tell you quite a bit.
Scott Rasmussen of RMG Research sent this along to me, although it is not his poll. You know somebody is a data geek when they point you to work done by their competitors! Thanks Scott!
The only exceptions are transgender issues where voters are evenly divided and LGBTQ issues where 51% do not trust him at all (but 49% do).
— Scott Rasmussen (@ScottWRasmussen) February 16, 2025
This suggests that @realDonaldTrump has picked his enemies well in the early days. He has put D’s in the position of having to defend illegal immigrants and the federal bureaucracy. More than 80% of voters consistenly say illegal immigration is bad for America. 60% believe the…
— Scott Rasmussen (@ScottWRasmussen) February 16, 2025
It’s an interesting poll because it shows that Americans have a pretty sophisticated view of Trump. While they trust him to address most of the issues they care deeply about, other questions show that they do so despite not having a particularly elevated view of him personally. In other words, they don’t have to LIKE the guy doing a good job for them, they just want the job done right.
It’s striking that of all the issues, it is only the alphabet ideology that stands out for Trump having negative trust. I can’t explain that at all.
As Scott points out, Trump is blessed by his enemies, who keep attacking him where he is strongest or where people don’t care nearly as much about their disagreements with Trump.
MAGA folks may LOVE Donald Trump, but the president’s success with the wider public has little to do with people liking him because if you look at the words people use to describe him, it is clear that many of his supporters do not. At all.
There is no way to spin the fact that between 75-85% of people would think that “opportunistic,” “arrogant,” and “divisive” are the top words to describe Trump as anything other than evidence that a lot of Trump supporters don’t care for his personal attributes but still trust him to do a good job.
Which, frankly, is a mature way to look at what it means to hire a president.
Let’s assume your best friend in the world is the president of Boeing and that you once got punched in the face by Elon Musk. Who would you hire to build a rocket?
If it is the friend, you are an idiot. Hire Elon Musk. He would get you to space and do so at a great price. God knows what Boeing would do these days.
Supporters of Trump should quit worrying about whether people are saying appropriately nice things about the man; who cares whether people LIKE Donald Trump? The fact is that people need to trust Trump to do the right thing, even if it is for the wrong reasons. And so far, people do.
Poll after poll shows that Trump is at his highest approval ever–not historically high for a normal president, but remarkably so for Trump. As the Democrats flail and scream, Trump just gets stronger.
So quit worrying about any criticisms of Trump’s character–many people get up in arms whenever anybody makes a less-than-flattering comment about the man’s personality. Those criticisms only matter if they impede his ability to do his job.
Obviously they are not doing so.
