May 15, 2017

Donald Trump’s Job Approval Has Been Sinking All Month

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I haven’t checked in on Donald Trump’s job approval rating for quite a while. Let’s do that:

Trump’s job approval rating dropped throughout March, thanks to his “wiretapping” claim and the failure of Trumpcare 1.0. He recovered in April, but has been dropping again since the beginning of May.

I’m not sure what’s at the root of this, but an unsmoothed look at the data confirms that there was a sharp change right around the beginning of May in both favorability rating and job approval rating. Was it the second go-around of Trumpcare? Bad publicity surrounding the end of Trump’s first 100 days? The budget agreement in which Trump got pretty much nothing he wanted?

None of those really seem likely, but I can’t think of anything else that happened at the end of April to cause a sudden drop. That is, I can’t think of anything other than, you know, everything.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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