Amid a string of bad press over his meeting with Vladimir Putin, his trade policy, ongoing concerns about child separations at the border, and NATO negotiations, President Trump’s approval rating managed to avoid taking a hit nationwide.
Morning Consult reported Tuesday that Trump’s “approval rating remained steady across most states in July.” The data comes from the company’s daily tracking survey of registered voters in each state over the course of the month. State-by-state margins of error, according to Morning Consult, range from one percentage point to five percentage points.
It’s true, of course, that Trump never gets a month of good media coverage, but July was an especially controversial stretch of days for the president.
Trump’s meeting with Putin on July 16 prompted days of criticism in the media and on Capitol Hill, and from people in both parties, making the summit one of the most controversial moments of his entire presidency. And in the days before he sat down with Putin, Trump was hit hard in the press for his performance at an annual gathering of NATO leaders.
Fallout over the administration’s tariff policy continued into July as well, as did outrage over child separations at the border.
Notably, Trump announced he was nominating Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court last month, which may have balanced out any disapproval stemming from other major stories in July.
But the concerns and priorities of those of us in the chattering class are not necessarily the concerns of voters. Trump’s approval rating managing to remain steady in a month marked by some of the worst press of his presidency (specifically related to the Putin summit) is a useful reminder of that.
[Also read: Blacks’ approval of Trump reaches a high of 21% and NAACP charges ‘racism’]
