Daniel W. Drezner: Donald Trump's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Polling Days

[Dennis Donovan]

Daniel W. Drezner - Donald Trump's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Polling Days

And why it's likely to get worse from here.

Daniel W. Drezner
Apr 27, 2025

One of my 2025 life hacks is not paying too much attention to internecine debates about how to oppose Donald Trump. Oppose him on principle about everything or oppose him with a measured, focused rage on issues where he is the most politically vulnerable? I get the arguments that both sides make on this, and I find myself toggling between both perspectives. Mostly, however, I recognize that this is not my bailiwick. So I pick and choose where my own opposition to Trump and his ilk makes the most sense and go from there.

This past month’s polling, however, set up an interesting short-term debate on this question with some long-term implications for Trump and the United States.

The Trump administration’s illegal deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador — and the government’s acknowledgment that this was due to “administrative error” — caused a split among opposition politicians and pundits about how to respond. The initial response among those paying attention was outrage over the Trump administration’s cruelty and disregard for the rule of law.

California governor and amateur podcaster Gavin Newsom initially dismissed the Abrego Garcia case as a “distraction,” however — and some other Democrats felt likewise. Pundits like Matthew Yglesias and Nate Silver similarly argued that voters by and large supported Trump’s approach to immigration, thereby making the Abrego Garcia case a losing one. As Silver wrote, “even if Abrego Garcia’s case is really about democracy — due process, and the separation of powers rather than about immigration per se — I’m not sure that’s a winning issue for the anti-Trump coalition…. in Abrego Garcia’s case, I’m not sure that voters actually will become more sympathetic to Democrats if they spend more time studying it.” Both Yglesias and Silver observed that the secular decline in Trump’s polling seemed to stall out the week Democrats focused on Abrego Garcia.

Other Democrats like Senator Chris Van Hollen rejected this argument:


(click image to watch video on BlueSky)

/snip

[yardwork]

1. I think Newsome, Nate Silver and others are wrong about Abrego Garcia.

Americans like stories about individuals. We aren't good at understanding the big picture. (There are some very good historical reasons for this.)

The average American may think that "deporting criminals" is a good idea, especially if "those people are here illegally." Americans are very quick to blame whole groups of people. (Again, historical.)

But let an individual story get into the national consciousness - such as the story about the nice people in Uncle Tom's Cabin who are abused by cruel slave owners - and Americans are suddenly very much on the side of the brave and the oppressed.

Abrego Garcia's story is about a brave and oppressed man who is separated from his family. He's been held in a concentration camp in one of those countries Trump taught Americans to fear. He wife and children cry on camera for him. His senator went to see him. Americans were enthralled. "Is he alive or dead? Did the senator get to see him? What happens next?" "What IS this place?"

All of this is devastating for the Republicans' attempts to keep Americans blind to the individual stories and focused on the big lie.

That's why we started to see fake tattoo pictures, and now Kristi Noem's supposed purse snatcher is "an illegal."

I expect a big national emergency or event soon to get the rubes back in line.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Maddow Blog-As his approval rating sinks, Trump wants investigations into pollsters

Instead of dealing with the failures that have led to his drop in support, the president is blaming pollsters and news organizations.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevebenen.com/post/3lnuq3mvmts2c

Trump could deal with the failures that have made him so unpopular.

But he apparently finds it easier to call for investigations into "criminal" pollsters — rhetoric that's become difficult to simply shrug off.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/approval-rating-sinks-trump-wants-investigations-pollsters-rcna203262

For his part, Trump has seen the shift in public attitudes, and he’s ready to reassess the direction of his failing presidency.

No, I’m just kidding. He’s actually lashing out at pollsters in new and ridiculous ways. Newsweek noted:

President Donald Trump has said pollsters that have shown his approval ratings sliding in recent weeks should be investigated for “election fraud.” Trump cited recent polls from The New York Times, ABC News/The Washington Post, and Fox News, which put his approval rating on 42 percent, 39 percent, and 44 percent respectively.

As this week got underway, Trump, shortly before sunrise, published an item to his social media platform that read, “We don’t have a Free and Fair ‘Press’ in this Country anymore. We have a Press that writes BAD STORIES, and CHEATS, BIG, ON POLLS. IT IS COMPROMISED AND CORRUPT. SAD!”

That came shortly on the heels of a related item, in which he lashed out at “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS.” The president added, “These people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the FoxNews Pollster while you’re at it.”.....

The hysterics were not altogether surprising. Trump did, after all, sue The Des Moines Register for publishing the results of a poll he didn’t like. So it stands to reason that he’d freak out in response to an avalanche of survey data showing his fading popularity.

But to the extent that reality has any bearing on this discussion, there are a few things to keep in mind here. The first is that there is no conspiracy: Polls show Trump struggling because Trump is failing and much of the public has noticed.

Second, the basis of the president’s weird conspiracy theory is absurd on its face: Pollsters can’t be engaged in “election interference” when there is no election, and the politician in question can’t run for re-election. (Even if there were an election, of course, there’s nothing improper about releasing public opinion research that one party doesn’t like.)

Third, and most importantly, some might feel the temptation to simply shrug off Trump’s call for an investigation into “criminal” polling, but given recent events, that seems inherently risky. This president has already a demonstrated a willingness to direct the Justice Department to go after his perceived foes, and there’s no reason to assume he’ll abandon these authoritarian-style tactics anytime soon.