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According to fivethirtyeight.com, Donald Trump's popularity seems to be rather constant over time, in contrast to his predecessors Barack Obama and George W. Bush who suffered a popularity erosion quicker than the current president.

How has he managed to keep his popularity so consistent over time?

This article suggests that being more intuitive than analytical is an important factor in explaining his popularity:

A study published in the journal Translational Issues in Psychological Science suggests that Donald Trump stands out amongst other politicians, including fellow Republicans and past presidents, as being exceptionally low in "analytic thinking."

However, this is only one dimension and I sense there are multiple factors that helps him to remain popular.

Question: How has Donald Trump managed to keep his approval levels so consistent?

I am particularly interested in articles or studies that provide more insight into this.

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    To be fair[er], the (latter) article also says there was a trend in that less-analytical direction across presidents over time. Also, it is actually an analysis of their discourse, not really of their thinking. Sep 28, 2019 at 14:32
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    And given that many speeches involve speech writers, the connection to the thinking of the president is even more questionable. But there's little doubt that trying to appeal to a broad audience by simple messages is increasingly used as a tactic. And it's enabled more and more by focus groups, big data analytics, etc. Sep 28, 2019 at 14:43
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    According to the 538 page, he's maintaining a steadily low popularity compared to other presidents. Do you really mean "remain so popular" in the sense of having high popularity?
    – JollyJoker
    Sep 30, 2019 at 7:50
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    I really don't understand the question. Donald Trump's popularity is indeed relatively flat, but low. Previous presidents have seen their popularity go down, but also start or go much higher, so in this end most of them were still more popular than Donald Trump even at their lowest point...
    – jcaron
    Sep 30, 2019 at 10:36
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    Are you sure you are reading the graph correctly? The approval rating is the lower green curve, not the upper orange one. Unless there's a big financial crisis or something that actually has a strong effect on the population, it can hardly go lower...
    – jcaron
    Sep 30, 2019 at 10:42

10 Answers 10

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It's actually surprisingly hard to find surveys that also ask the "why" question of the supporters. I did find one on-line survey by "SurveyMonkey", although I'm not sure of its reliability; even the date is unclear. It used open ended questions.

enter image description here

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a large majority of Republicans (85%) approve of the job Trump is doing as president. When asked why, they highlight that he has “kept promises” made during the campaign, “put America first,” “tried to get things done,” and “reversed the last eight years” of Obama administration policies.

Many respondents cite specific campaign slogans (“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” in some form or another is used by about 8% of all respondents) in their responses.

As the chart above shows, college grads tend to zero in on more tangible goals (top mentioned topic was “reduced regulations”) whereas those without college degrees focus on vaguer ambitions like “making America great again.” Many college grads applaud Trump for “reinvigorating the economy” by removing “intrusive” regulations on business that do more harm than good. This group also advocates another time-tested Trumpism: “Draining the Swamp.” However, the college grads who cited this reason for approving of Trump also acknowledged that while Trump is “trying” to drain the swamp and accomplish his other campaign promises, he is “being blocked by others,” including both Democrats and members of his own party.

One topic that emerged equally from non-college grads and college grads was the feeling that while Trump has “good positions,” he also has a “flawed personality” that does not lend itself to effective communicating or strategizing.

On the other hand, those with less than a college degree praise Trump using some of his more amorphous campaign slogans: “Making America Great Again” and “Putting America First.” These supporters also appreciate Trump for his plain-speaking (“Tells it like it is”) and for the fact that he is “doing his best” despite facing adversity.

There is one Pew "thermometer" survey of Trump supporters, which does seem to show that Trump has not disappointed much his base, and on the contrary those who voted for him while being skeptical have warmed up to Trump in the aftermath. It's harder to say why this happened, just from that survey. Where they happy with his policies, and which ones in particular? Or has he become more likeable for another, less direct reason, like the economy doing well? (Of course Trump draws a direct and immediate connection between the two, but let's not get into that here. In general a US president's approval rating is tied to the stock market.)

enter image description here

Fivethirtyeight has managed to point to one event that apparently did impact (or at least correlated) with a noticeable change in Trump's approval, namely the government shutdown from last winter. But after that shutdown ended, Trump's rating recovered and has been more or less stable since.

enter image description here

So from that at least it looks like there was not much popular reaction to the Mueller report this spring. (That article is from Sep 13, so before the Ukraine/impeachment event, it's probably too early to tell how [much] this is going to affect Trump approval.)

Another interesting issue is that Trump's approval rating is "underperforming" the popular perception of the economy (doing well). In contrast, there was a narrower difference between Obama's approval rating and the perception of the economy in his time. But Trump's approval rating just on his "handling" of the economy is actually better than his overall job approval rating.

Finally, there are a lot of papers that try to profile his supporters in one aspect or another, but that's perhaps too long to go over here. But out of all that work, I did like a 2017 study that identified/clustered four major profiles for Trump voters. You can use their priorities expressed in the graph below to cross-check how some of Trump's later executive actions satisfied one group or another in this electoral alliance of sorts. E.g. tax cuts satisfied some groups, deportations satisfied others, and Trump's climate-change position(s) apparently satisfied all. (Alas there's no follow-up study, like for example determining for each of these groups how much they liked Trump then and now/later.)

enter image description here

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    FiveThirtyEight gives SurveyMonkey a grade of D-. It's the worst grade you can get without faking your results, and FiveThirtyEight notes that it's got a very heavy Democrat bias.
    – Mark
    Sep 28, 2019 at 23:00
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    @Mark: I suspected it would be crap since they can't even put a date on article.(Also their use of the word "Trumpism" kinda gave away their leaning.) If you can find a better survey on the "why" issue... Sep 28, 2019 at 23:02
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    @Mark The FiveThirtyEight ratings seem to be about how well the pollster predicts election results, which doesn't seem to me as if it would necssarily directly impact the results of a poll like this, where they're measuring what people are actually saying rather than trying to guess what people will do or did from what they say. I'm not claiming that this SurveyMonkey poll is good or accurate here, but it looks to me like FiveThirtyEight wouldn't provide a good indicator if its quality.
    – cjs
    Sep 29, 2019 at 4:31
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    The first graph shows that Trump's "messages" are not so naïve as they might appear. None of the four reasons main reasons for approval require that he achieves anything tangible, merely that his approvers think he is still trying to achieve something, even when there is no clear articulation of what that "something" is.
    – alephzero
    Sep 30, 2019 at 17:55
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    One thing that strikes me about the comments in the resons for approving of Trump is that "he is doing his best". A cynic might say that they fear this is true.
    – j4nd3r53n
    Oct 1, 2019 at 8:33
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How does Donald Trump manage to remain so popular over a rather long period of time?

He just doesn't. Other than a few days at the very beginning of his mandate, he has never been popular. He's never gone over 45% approval rating, while nearly all previous presidents for which data exists have gone way over 50%, many of them over 80%.

If you compare to previous presidents (from the same page as the one linked in the question, with Trump in green and the other president in grey):

enter image description here

Most of them remained more popular than Donald Trump even at the lowest point in the popularity. Only Truman and Carter went significantly below Trump's approval ratings over a significant period of time, with Reagan and Ford having smaller incursions below Trump's ratings.

So there may have been some erosion, usually losing the approval of the "swing voters" along the way, but Donald Trump has just nearly never had any of those to lose. He just keeps his "die-hard" fan base who will approve what he does and says whatever it is.

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    @tim Clearly, in the eyes of many those "scandals" are not severe.
    – Sjoerd
    Sep 30, 2019 at 19:33
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    It's crazy how overt W. Bush was able to use 9/11 to boost his popularity.
    – Caleb Jay
    Sep 30, 2019 at 20:28
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    @CalebJay Well, at least the effect of it on his popularity is clear. That he "used" it isn't really. I suspect it had more to do with natural public sentiment and solidarity following the nation being attacked and his relatively-Presidential (at least at first) responses to it that had a lot more to do with it than him intentionally trying to use it to boost his popularity. While there are a lot of things I'd disagree with Bush on, he actually had class and acted like a President. The country also wasn't nearly as politically divided (or motivated) then as it is now.
    – reirab
    Sep 30, 2019 at 22:18
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    @tim That's populism in action... Just repeat what your core electorate wants to hear, and deny as loudly as you can anything bad anyone says about you, discarding it as fake news. Even though most politicians are good at promising, lying, and denying, I'm not sure anyone did it with as much aplomb as Trump.
    – jcaron
    Sep 30, 2019 at 22:29
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    @jcaron From an academic perspective this presidency is fascinating insofar as it seems that in the past it isn't the scandals themselves that did damage to the presidents after all- it was admitting they had made a mistake! This sets an interesting precedent- if you can get away with anything at all simply by saying you didn't do it, what does that mean for the US checks and balances?
    – Onyz
    Oct 1, 2019 at 11:03
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If you look at the Trump's popularity graph on 538 in comparison to prior presidents' graphs, you'll notice something unusual: the graph is essentially flat, where the other graphs fluctuate significantly. Outside of the first two months, Trump's popularity has never risen above 43%, or dropped below 36%.

This article from 538 compares the range of Trump's approval ratings with other presidents. Trump's approval has varied much less, but has also been consistently lower, than any other president: Obama (high 62, low 43), Clinton (high 60, low 36), or Reagan (high 68, low 35).

FiveThirtyEight's analysis of this is that Trump lost everyone but his core supporters early on (the graph doesn't have the resolution to show it, but he had an approval rating above 50% on his first day in office). Since then, he's done nothing to gain the approval of non-core supporters or lose that of his core.

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    The first part of this is just restating the question, and the second part could use a link to the appropriate FTE article(s). This could easily be accurate, but the OP is looking for sources.
    – Bobson
    Sep 29, 2019 at 15:13
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    @Bobson, I'd love to provide a link. Unfortunately, obvious search terms such as "Trump" and "popularity" have been FiveThirtyEight's core business for the past four years, so there are a lot of false-positives to search through.
    – Mark
    Sep 29, 2019 at 19:54
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    This answer points to what I think may be the heart of it - Trump has never had a positive approval rating to lose.
    – Dronz
    Sep 29, 2019 at 23:50
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    @Bobson - this is the most weird way to abbreviate 538 I can possible think of :)
    – user4012
    Sep 30, 2019 at 1:18
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I think it’s important to recognize that people do not necessarily answer polls honestly, especially polls which they (often correctly) identify as “liberally biased”.

If they interpret a poll as saying “we want to show that Trump is failing, so he can’t achieve his agenda,” they might react, “well I support him 100%, so report that instead, punk!” People’s understanding of polls is relatively sophisticated; they know the poll will be reported, and that reporting may very well matter for their agenda in the future, so they’ll say the thing on the poll which [they believe] maximizes their agenda.

For previous presidents, it was understood that the president was responsive to public opinion, and that the media was basically “just trying to learn about public opinion,” (whether or not that was true is another question). So, your “real opinion” maximized your agenda more than your steadfastness; that may simply no longer be true.

None of this is to say “people who say they support Trump are lying” and the other answers are totally legitimate in their explanations for people’s actual approval. It’s merely that for a lot of people, polls appear to be hoping to find massive renunciation of Trump for political purposes, and not providing that renunciation is much more important than actually evaluating all Trump’s actions, weighting them, and reporting some average feeling.

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  • Most important is whether e.g. the GOP understands this if true.
    – Andrew
    Sep 30, 2019 at 15:43
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    The opposite is also true: in many circles one is not allowed to like Trump, and in those circles people will give the answer required by their peers. Polls underestimated Trump's real share of votes, and this is one of the reasons usually given.
    – Sjoerd
    Sep 30, 2019 at 19:36
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    @quack_inc4 Pollers were perceived as anti-Trump ever since Trump joined the race, so why do you expect a non-zero trend? If anything, the anti-Trump bias of the media has become more obvious. Maybe more people are masking their true opinions nowadays? Hard to say - we'll know the answer in November 2020.
    – Sjoerd
    Sep 30, 2019 at 19:45
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    @Sjoerd I’m very skeptical of the idea that people will feel “social pressure” on anonymous polls, but not on equally anonymous votes. Answering a poll and voting are, essentially, the same action, with the same purpose and choices. If polls are “off”, it’s much more likely to be a selection bias or historical assumptions that are off, than the literal people you contacted voted according to their “true feelings” in the election, but according to their “social pressure” in the poll.
    – quack_inc4
    Sep 30, 2019 at 19:58
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    @quack_inc4 The anonymity of a vote is much better protected than the anonymity of a poll, especially if done by phone or email. So I challenge your "equally anonymous," as I don't know of any poll where the people polled put their answer on paper into a sealed box. You may feel that it's "equally," but lots will disagree.
    – Sjoerd
    Sep 30, 2019 at 23:24
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Here is one take from sociocultural anthropologist Joel Robbins.

The Mysterious Power of Arrogance, 2 FEB 2017

Why do overbearing, obnoxious people so often come out on top? What the story of a local celebrity in the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea reveals about the rise of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency.

In the community of Urapmin lives a man named Kinimnok—a boastful, loud, and often angry public figure—whose role in society may help us understand some Americans’ love of those who are supercilious and bombastic.

...

In all societies, just as with the Urapmin, people have to balance values that are not fully compatible with one another. The values that come into conflict differ—in modern democracies some of the key opposed pairs are values like security and freedom, liberty and equality, and the self and the community—but the trick of balancing them remains much the same. Hence, people like Kinimnok, who give up on balance and put all their efforts into achieving a single value, always stand out from the rest, and they often seem to captivate their fellows.

A certain kind of rugged, me-and-mine-first individualism has long been a value in the United States, but it has competed with other values that are concerned with openness, tolerance, and the common good. People usually balance these, compromising on all of them in order to realize a little bit of each. But perhaps because the value of individualism has become harder for most people to realize, even partially, in their current economic circumstances, many Americans recently proved captivated by someone with little interest in values other than individualistic self-promotion. They were joined to a candidate—who went on to become President Donald Trump—by a bond anchored in his ability to express this one value of theirs very fully.

Societies tend to work better when their members struggle to balance conflicting values, and this gives grounds to worry about what leadership devoted to a single value—particularly one such as self-promotion—might be like. Based on my experience in Papua New Guinea, I am not as surprised as I once would have been that many people in the U.S. found themselves attracted to someone who single-mindedly pursues one of their values at the expense of all the rest. But the Urapmin never put Kinimnok at the head of their government, allowing his willfulness to do away with the role of lawfulness in their lives. It remains to be seen how America’s other values will fare in the wake of an election that prioritized one value above the rest.

One of the issues mentioned in this article is compromise.

In 1988, George H. W. Bush said "Read my lips: no new taxes." His popularity with Republicans soared. After a compromise with Democrats in Congress, that resulted in increased taxes, he lost his re-election bid.

President Trump has shown no willingness to compromise; going so far as to attempt repeated end runs around Congress. As long as he continues with that approach, it appears that his popularity (with his base) will remain steady.

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    On gun control, sentencing reform, and spending generally, you are wrong on Trump's overtures to the left side of the aisle.
    – user9790
    Sep 29, 2019 at 1:13
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    @KDog - Willingness is a quality of an individual. That such an individual may compromise due to circumstances doesn't change the quality. For example, one takes the same road to a destination, daily. One day the road is blocked and a detour is provided. Those with a willingness to compromise will take the detour without complaint. Those with no willingness to compromise will also take the detour; but they will complain and blame others because they had to take the detour. Compromise is not evidence of a willingness to compromise.
    – Rick Smith
    Sep 30, 2019 at 14:16
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    If you are saying that Trump e.g. is arguing in bad faith about any of what I said is belied by the facts that spending is still very relatively high, bump stocks have been banned and passage of the First Step Act signed into law.
    – user9790
    Sep 30, 2019 at 16:40
  • @KDog - You seem to have missed the part about circumstances. Bump stocks were banned after a massacre. The First Step Act amended prior law and was passed with a veto-proof majority. (I am not going to discuss spending.)
    – Rick Smith
    Oct 1, 2019 at 23:04
  • If anything the reason for the veto proof majority was Trump log rolling prison reform for a year, the Kardashian support, etc. You seem to forget he was a lifelong New York liberal, HRC supporter. Seems like an opportunity wasted by team Dem
    – user9790
    Oct 2, 2019 at 10:53
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People talk about how Trump is childish, thin-skinned, politically incorrect, abrasive, etc. All of that is true.

And that's why people like him.

Not for those traits themselves (who finds that stuff admirable?) but for the effect it has on people they don't like. Trump is the worst possible insult that rural Americans could throw at their political opponents, and they know it. Every gossip rag article about how awful Trump is, every denunciation, every vitriolic rant from the Left confirms for the people that elected him that he's having exactly the intended effect.

This framework of analysis neatly explains, for example, how scandals seem to paradoxically increase his approval. I'm not sure how to actually combat this: it seems to be a rather effective self-tightening philosophical noose.

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TLDR: Trump is making in-roads with conservatives, had very little support from the smallish liberal group, (so erosion there was less important), and is the default choice among moderates because the Democratic party has tacked leftward significantly.

The second largest ideological group in America is conservatives. Most remember that Trump was a life-long New York Democrat, only recently aligned with the GOP. He's long been an advocate for gay rights, abortion rights (seems to be more conservative now), trade protectionism (still does), and a few other policy positions traditionally held by Democrats. This Johnny-come-lately approach didn't allow him to maximize his appeal among conservatives.

According to exit polling, Trump won 81 percent [among conservatives], but amazingly Clinton won 16 percent (3 percent going elsewhere or not responding).

Combined, Trump failed to secure roughly one-fifth of conservatives — America’s second largest ideological group — in 2016. This will not happen again. In 2016, Trump was an unknown to conservatives; since taking office, his policies should have removed any conservative doubts. On taxes, immigration, judicial nominations, foreign policy, the economy and social policy, it is hard to imagine conservatives being unhappy.

And unhappy they are not. Republican support, as predicted, has increased to 85% as of March 2019.

Trump's support among liberals was never that great to begin with, but the number of liberals is much smaller relatively to conservatives. So it's less important. From the Hill Link:

In 2016, he won 10 percent of liberals. Do not expect a repetition.

However, liberals are America’s smallest ideological group. So, netting the two out, picking up twice as big a percentage from a larger group, is a great trade for Trump.

How about the moderates? Trump in 2016 was able to appeal to them dramatically.

Trump won 206 counties that had supported Obama in 2008 and 2012, which were heavily concentrated in the Midwestern states that propelled him to an Electoral College victory.

“I think Donald Trump actually represented a triumph of centrism,” says GOP consultant Brad Todd. “A lot of analysts never thought you could run on a platform that was socially conservative and fiscally moderate.”

So Trump can be seen as a 2016 variant of the moderate in that sense. Maybe more. How does the Democratic field line up to win moderates? Poorly. Same source.

Democrats Move Further Left

The Democratic Party seems to be engaged in an effort to see how far an American party can move to the left. Prominent presidential candidates and other Democratic politicians are variously talking about preserving and expanding abortion rights, talking up a single-payer health-care plan known as Medicare for All, promising to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and seeking to impose severe energy restrictions as part of a Green New Deal.

Such proposals may excite the party’s progressive wing, but they threaten to put off moderate voters who would otherwise be willing to vote against Trump. ... Still, the party’s large and wide-open presidential contest thus far has been a contest to see who can move farthest to the left. That may change, but for now progressives appear to be convinced of the correctness and popularity of their positions, spurning any candidate who veers toward the center or hints at cooperating with the other party.

Progressives nowadays like to deride moderates as wanting only “some” global warming or offering health care to most but not all Americans. The traditional way of finding the center -- working out compromises with political opponents -- has become politically radioactive.

Does this radicalization of the Democrats help Trump electorally among moderates? Most assuredly. The moderates if they have a home will be with Trump. Back to the Hill Article:

...according to Real Clear Politics’ average of national polls, Democrats’ left candidates have a combined 59.2 percent support. It is impossible to see Democrats not nominating a candidate from this rapidly growing majority, and with super delegate rules now changed, there is no brake on Democrats’ going far left: Even should proclivity not lead there, necessity will.

Such a far-left Democrat nominee becomes Trump’s safety valve on moderate support. For moderates, a far-left nominee becomes the ultimate unknown, but policy positions on spending, taxes, social issues, immigration and foreign policy — all are likely to give them significant concerns. In contrast, after four years Trump will be “known,” having survived four years he will at worst benefit from “choosing the devil we know over the devil we don’t.”

And then you have the incumbency bump.

Since 1916, elected incumbents have averaged a 3.4 percent increase in their popular vote margin when seeking a second term.

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    Where's the source of your claim that "the number of liberals is much smaller relatively to conservatives", besides an opinion piece in the hill? Looking at last week's economist/yougov polling crosstabs of 1500 respondents, "Liberal", "Moderate", and "Conservative" identity was respectively reported as about (varies slightly per question because they can be skipped) [450, 425, 475]...
    – dandavis
    Sep 30, 2019 at 7:12
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    @dandavis In the second yellow excerpt, twice. That conservatives out number liberals is nothing new
    – user9790
    Sep 30, 2019 at 10:04
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    @KDog When they self-identify, anyways, since most independents consistently vote in line with liberals, per the pew research sourced in your governing link. While this answer does show a lot of effort regarding sources and information retrieved, I'm worried about the information it leaves out from the sources cited.
    – Onyz
    Sep 30, 2019 at 13:47
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    @Onyz You do realize that was a link inside of a link right, among 3 sources cited in total? And that it's hard if not impossible to segment from one poll and just slide it into another?
    – user9790
    Oct 1, 2019 at 20:16
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    @KDog Certainly. I was simply trying to verify your claim that conservatives outnumber liberals, but it appears that claim is only true when you go exclusively off of self-identifying metrics and exclude the rest of the article you referenced in your comment. No link-in-link required to identify the information given: "voters who identify as independents may not consider themselves partisan, but they almost invariably do vote in party-line fashion". I would consider this impetus to look into how exactly the independents swing- and I did. That's all.
    – Onyz
    Oct 2, 2019 at 11:03
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Trump is very much against the idea of political correctness, which (at least in my understanding) can be defined as the idea that some things cannot be said, or cannot be believed in, because they're hurtful of some people or groups of people.

Citation: "Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape"; neatly summarized in Atlantic 2018 article "Americans Strongly Dislike PC Culture"

Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.”

Political tribe—as defined by the authors—is an even better predictor of views on political correctness. Among devoted conservatives, 97 percent believe that political correctness is a problem. Among traditional liberals, 61 percent do. Progressive activists are the only group that strongly backs political correctness: Only 30 percent see it as a problem.

So that is at least one reason why Trump remains popular.

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    "At the same time, virtually everyone on the right, and (I suppose) a lot of independents are against political correctness too." [Citation needed] Sep 29, 2019 at 4:07
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    Trump and his followers seem supportive of the idea that people shouldn't talk about climate change. Sep 29, 2019 at 14:54
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    @DavidGrinberg - sigh. In case you were asking in good faith... first result on Google (source: largely left wing Atlantic Mag): theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/… "Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” Has breakdown for right (90%) and traditional liberals (60%)
    – user4012
    Sep 29, 2019 at 18:10
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    @DavidGrinberg I thought that the Politics Stack Exchange would be a serious and honest place to discuss politics. It is clear now that this place is just a slightly more polished version of politics subreddits.
    – user25110
    Sep 29, 2019 at 18:23
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    @VictorS. Please note I did not say you were wrong. I ask for citations on everything; you are welcome to read through my history to confirm. We do not take things for granted here, especially on hotly contestable points. For example, the primary source you have put up (thanks!) is from a left-leaning news agency. Again - doesn't mean its wrong, but when you talk politics its important to keep things in perspective. I would also suggested you read less emotions into online chat, as you do not know the writers mind. Sep 29, 2019 at 19:59
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How does Donald Trump manage to remain so popular over a rather long period of time?

Because in the eyes of many, he says the things that need to be said. And tries to do the things that need to be done.

So it's not unsurprising that in the eyes of those, he's still popular.

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    Problem is, he's actually not popular.
    – jcaron
    Sep 30, 2019 at 12:37
  • Can you support this with references? In particular, do those that supported him initially with the hope that he would get things done still support him? For example this Washington Post article cites research showing there have been shifts in both sides, with some demographics breaking with Trump while others have embraced him more.
    – JJJ
    Oct 5, 2019 at 10:33
  • @JJJ Did you ask the same on other answers here as well? Or are you just singling me out?
    – Sjoerd
    Oct 5, 2019 at 11:08
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    It came up in a meta discussion. I thought I had already left a comment to that effect when reviewing it in the low-quality queue but it appears I hadn't. Regardless of that, I don't think it matters why I ask for a bit more elaboration now, what matters is that we strive to have good quality answers and I think there's room for improvement here so the answer is more useful for others.
    – JJJ
    Oct 5, 2019 at 11:31
-1

The US economy is doing quite well lately, and unemployment, especially among minorities, is at record lows.

That is a good reason to be popular, especially if one was previously unemployed.

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    But does that actually translate into support of Trump from said minorities? I.e. do you have any data to back up the inference? (Not just data on the economy, that's easy as pie to find.) Sep 28, 2019 at 20:09
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    "Approval among black Americans has hovered around 10% over the course of Trump’s presidency, according to Gallup polling, with 8% approving in June." apnews.com/009d85b2022a4b46859506a0859c8921 Sep 28, 2019 at 20:20
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    Trump's support among minorities is essentially non-existent. To grab some numbers from the most recent Morning Consult survey, he's got 27% approval among Hispanics, 7% approval among African-Americans, and 24% approval among other minorities. Compare to 48% approval among whites (and note that other than among whites, the approval is generally weak rather than strong).
    – Mark
    Sep 28, 2019 at 22:49
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    @Mark 27% among Hispanics and 24% among others is "essentially non-existent"? That's close to 1 in 4 for those groups. Even the the number cited for African-Americans is slightly less than 1 in 10. It's hard for me to justify dismissing that percentage of a significant population.
    – PC Luddite
    Sep 29, 2019 at 17:20
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    @PCLuddite you don't add approval ratings, you do a weighted average. So those low figures drag his overall ratings down, not up. Any part of the population that has an approval rating below his average (which hovers around 40%) is dragging it down.
    – jcaron
    Sep 30, 2019 at 12:40

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