A New Poll Drops

I periodically like to note where things stand with the polls, just as a marker in time.  And a new one was released yesterday from CNN and their polling service SSRS. 

This first group of numbers is truly awful, but the problem for Trump is that as bad as they are (and they're very bad), they’re not the worst numbers from the results.  In Trump’s first term, he went into each State of the Union Address with a net approval (the gap between disapprove and approve) between a range of minus-10 to minus-15 points.  Today, he’s going into the SOTU Address at minus-27.

But here’s the second group of numbers.  It’s especially terrible because it adds perspective.  However, it, too, is not the worst.  What this new polling shows is a comparison:  that when President Obama and W. Bush had their first SOTU Address in their second term, Barack Obama was minus-15 and George W. Bush was minus-11.  Trump is not only worse than each of those, but more than them combined!  Again, he’s at a net approval of minus-27 points.

That brings us to the third group.  And the reason this is critical is because it looks at the two groups Trump over-performed with during the 2024 election.  And the bottom has dropped out of them both.  Young voters (and that generously includes voters under 45) who went far stronger for Trump than usual have dropped 18 points!  And Latino voters, a big surprise for Trump in the last election, have fallen off the edge, dropping 19 points.  Yet this is not the worst either.

It’s the fourth group that I think is most damning.  And it’s Independents.  This is the group of voters that is basically equal in number to Democrats and Republicans, and as such generally determines close races.  With Independents, Trump’s net approval is…minus-47 points!!!!!  That’s an earthquake.  Only year ago, his net approval with Independents was minus-13.  And this confirms a similar number for Independents I saw in another poll and wrote about a month ago.  All of these numbers, but especially this with Independents is probably why we’re seeing Democrats picking up an average of 16 points in every Special Election since Trump got back into office.

Polls aside, the biggest problem of all for Trump and MAGOPs is something I’ve noted before that I strongly believe in.  That doesn’t make it right, of course.  But I stand by it.  When a candidate’s number are high, but makes a mistake, people tend to cut them some slack – because they like the person, it's a mistake.  However, when a candidate’s approval is low and makes a mistake, I don’t think people looks past it, and instead the mistake confirms why they don’t like the candidate in the first place.  And Trump’s numbers are very low.  And he’s going to make mistakes.

He’s going to make mistakes because he has dementia, which is degenerative.  And because he’s a malignant narcissist who is someone who not only just cares about himself, but (among many other things) when he doesn’t get his way is willing to burn down his own house.  And furthermore, Trump is going to make mistakes because he’s not surrounded by anyone who can help him.  He picked unqualified incompetents to surround him, chosen because they’ll say “Yes” to everything Trump wants.

Consider:

FBI Director Kash Patel flew on taxpayer money to Italy to attend an Olympic hockey game and lied about it -- and then released video of him drinking beer and faux-macho yelling in the U.S. Men’s Hockey Team locker room.  Attorney General Pam Bondi had a debacle meltdown yelling at members of Congress, and not answering question but instead talking about the Dow being over 50,000.  (By the way, it’s now 48,800…but why nitpick? There's so much else much worse)  Like that Bondi's DOJ had to drop it's attempt to indict six Democratic members of Congress who made a video saying the military is required by Code to not follow illegal orders -- and despite the maxim "You can get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich," never mind not getting an indictment, DOJ's prosecutors could not get even one single person on the Grand Jury to vote to indict!  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent smirked about not giving back the $200 billion to Americans that the Supreme Court just ruled had been collected illegally.  DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had her advisor/boyfriend Corey Lewandowski try to find out who had left her blankie behind on a plane, and then fired the pilot -- only to rehire him when realizing there was no other pilot to fly them back.  Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth released a video (for some unknown faux-macho reason) of him supposedly bench-pressing 350 pounds – except that it was clearly AI because the spotter’s leg in the video cut through middle of the bench, a physical impossibility.  Health & Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. released his faux-macho video of a bare-chested exercise routine he did with Kid Rock. And if this list isn’t longer, that’s because all of these took place just the past week!!

Going back two weeks, we can add VP “JD Vance”, getting booed at the Olympics, and then slamming Olympic Gold Medal-winners for exercising their freedom of speech.  And Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, after insisting he’d told his wife he would never be in the same room with that sleazy sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, went before the Senate to explain his email about having lunch on Epstein’s island after that and defended it by saying he’d brought his little children along!!!  

And these are the people who are going to help Trump and make sure he doesn’t make any more mistakes??!!  They are among the reasons he keeps making mistakes.

In fact, the main reason we know that Trump will make more mistakes after these new CNN poll numbers is because – he already has!  When the Supreme Court gave Trump an easy off-ramp from his disastrous and deeply unpopular tariff program by declaring it illegal… Trump not only went ahead and announced a different tariff and two new increases – but went out of his way to actually slam the Supreme Court (!), calling them "dumb", "very internationally divisive" and that he has a "complete lack of respect" for them.

And then after the U.S Men’s Hockey Team won the Gold Medal with an amazing game against Canada – and how could anyone screw up that? – Trump called the locker room to congratulate everyone and invite them to the State of the Union Address.  But then, because he’s Trump, he added, begrudgingly, that he would have to also invited the U.S. Women’s Hockey Team (who also won the Gold Medal), because if he didn’t, he’d probably get impeached.  The Women’s Team put out a very polite, gracious response that they had to turn down the invitation because, so they “explained,” they had a schedule conflict.  The conflict was probably that no one wanted to come after the insult.  So, when Trump introduces the Men’s Team at the SOTU to cheers, everyone watching (whoever that will be...) will wonder – “Hey, wait, the U.S. Women also won the Gold Medal.  Why aren’t they here???  Didn’t Trump invite them?”  And then, learn,if they check, "Ohhhh, he didn’t want the Women's Team and insulted them."

And to top it off, Trump released an AI-generated video of him in a business suit skating on the U.S. Hockey Team, scoring against Canada…and crashing them into the boards and beating them up, pounding Canadian players in head!

This is not normal.

And he will keep making mistakes.

Because Trump has dementia, which is degenerative, and can’t help himself.  And is a malignant narcissist, and can’t help himself.  And has only a 37% approval and keeps relentlessly beating up himself.