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Commentary

February 13, 2017

Trump’s Job Approval Has Gone Both Up and Down

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I’ve put up this chart before, but it’s worth putting up again. This is President Trump’s job approval rating since Inauguration Day:

I’ve read a bunch of stories saying that Trump’s job approval has cratered since he took office, but that’s not really true: it’s gone up two points. Now, it’s also true that his disapproval rating has skyrocketed, which means that his net approval rating (approve minus disapprove) has gone down (from +3 to -6.4).

My take is simple: this means that his fans like him more than ever, while everyone else dislikes him more than ever. Perhaps this level of polarization is normal these days. But it’s a little more complicated than “Trump’s job approval has gone down.”