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Report #

22

Executive approval update

By the COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States

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Executive approval update

Key takeaways

Despite the headwinds confronting the country in facing COVID-19, approval of most governors’ and President Trump’s COVID-19 response did not change greatly between September and October in our survey. President Trump’s approval has ticked up a point to 35%, which is still problematically low approval for the most salient issue in the 2020 election by far (in 49 out of 50 states, Alaska being the one exception, COVID-19 is ranked as ”the most important problem”). More generally, after suffering a decline in the spring, the President’s approval rating has been flatline around his October rating of 35%. (For all approval ratings for the President and all of the governors, see the tables in the appendix.) To compare, governors, as a group, have seen a gradual decline in their approval ratings between late April and September; a 1 point increase from September (47%) to October (48%) marks the first time they have improved, or even held steady since our initial survey wave. Despite this, approval of governors is generally higher than that of the President. In 42 states, the governor has a higher approval level than the President, and in 2 states the levels are the same; in 6 states, the President has a higher approval level, but in no state does the approval of the President exceed that of the governor by more than the margin of error for the survey in that state.1 Per-state approval of the President roughly tracks partisanship of the state, and the only state where his approval is above 50% is Alabama. In most of the 10 swing states, the President hovers around 35%, from a low of 29% in New Hampshire to a high of 42% in Ohio. Alaska and Iowa stand out as states that he won handily in 2016, but now finds very low approval -- 34% and 32%, respectively. Other states he won in 2016 and now lingers at the national average or below are Michigan and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania --perhaps the most pivotal state in the 2020 election -- runs against the trend somewhat, showing approval ratings below the national level in April, and now several points above (at 38%). 

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Report details

Published:
November
2020
Report Number:
22
Topic:
Executive Approval
OSF Preprint:
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