POLL-AXED

CNN Data Guru Floored by Trump’s ‘Absolutely Awful’ Poll Disaster

A fresh wave of polling shows the president’s numbers spiraling.

There is “no bottom” for the president’s crumbling public support as a barrage of catastrophic new polling paints an “absolutely awful” picture for Donald Trump, according to data guru Harry Enten.

A brutal trio of fresh surveys released this week showed Trump sinking to historic second-term lows, leaving CNN’s chief data analyst visibly floored on air. The surveys—showing Trump at 34 percent in a CNN poll, 33 percent in an AP-NORC poll, and an all-time low of 32 percent in a Quinnipiac University poll—signal a public approval collapse with no floor in sight.

FREEFALL

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“So is there a bottom?” Enten asked during the broadcast. “It does not appear to be to me that there is a bottom for President Trump.”

The cascading collapse highlights an unprecedented midterm nightmare for the administration. Comparing Trump’s standing to other 21st-century leaders at the exact same point in their second terms, an average of the CNN, Quinnipiac, and AP-NORC polls puts Trump at a meager 33 percent approval rating.

That trails Barack Obama, who stood at 41 percent at the equivalent point in his presidency, and George W. Bush, who held 38 percent despite the ongoing Iraq War during the 2006 midterm cycle.

According to Enten, finding a lower approval rating at this stage of a second term requires looking back more than five decades to Richard Nixon, who was resigning from office within weeks of hitting that mark in 1974.

“These guys were doing terrible, but he’s doing terrible, terrible, terrible–you know, trying to do my best Charles Barkley here,” Enten said, attempting a half-hearted impression of the NBA broadcaster’s catchphrase. “I can’t really do it this early in the morning, but it’s just absolutely awful at this point. No wonder President Trump is at historic lows for a term-two president at this point.”

Enten attributed Trump’s sharp decline primarily to deep economic dissatisfaction, pointing out that the economy was central to his return to the White House.

On economic approval specifically, Trump sits at just 30 percent, compared to 38 percent for both Obama and Bush at the same point in their second terms. Enten emphasized that despite those past presidents also struggling with economic approval, Trump’s numbers are worse still.

With the November midterms less than 100 days away, Enten’s analysis suggests that continued economic discontent could pose a significant political liability for the president and his party heading into the election cycle.

“When you’re not pleased with the economy,” he said, “you get the good old-fashioned boot, as far as the American people are concerned.”

Asked to comment on the recent polls, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle responded with an oft-used statement about “the ultimate poll” being the day the president was elected.

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