Sunday, December 11, 2016

Trumpty Dumpty? Low ratings in Pew poll about presidential transition






































On December 8th the Pew Research Center released results from their poll in an article titled Low Approval of Trump’s Transition but Outlook for His Presidency Improves. It includes a link to the full report.




















USA Today summarized it in an article titled Poll: Majority of Americans unhappy with Trump’s handling of transition which provided a vertical bar chart with the same data as the first one shown above. (Click on it for a larger, clearer view). There is a striking deficit (a great fall) of ~30 percent between Obamas's approval ratings and Trump's - 72% versus just 41%. Page 12 of the pdf from the Pew Report said:

“About eight-in-ten Republicans and Republican leaners (79%) say they approve of the job Trump has done explaining his policies and plans for the future to the American people; just 15% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say the same. The 64-percentage point gap between the ratings offered by Republicans and Democrats is larger than the 44-percentage point gap in early reactions to Obama measured in December 2008 and the 48-percentage point gap in reactions to Bush measured in January 2001. The current gap is driven in part by very low rating among Democrats: the 15% who approve of Trump’s early approach is lower than any rating given to a new president-elect by members of the losing party in recent elections (including the 29% of Democrats who approved of how Bush laid out his vision in January 2001).”

Presumably this gap comes as a reaction to Trump’s combative campaign. Trump can expect to hear the phrase “(Screw you) and the horse you rode in on” a lot more in the future.

The Humpty Dumpty image was adapted from one in Puck magazine back on March 12, 1913 found at the Library of Congress.

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