Trump should be worried about gap between his standing and strong economy
By Tory Newmyer
July 2 at 7:57 AM
Most Americans think the economy is flying high, and most aren’t giving President Trump credit.
Voters have been making that split assessment for months. But it was underlined anew Monday, a day that the current economic expansion entered the history books as the longest on record.
A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that while two-thirds of respondents say the economy is “good,” only 47 percent approve of Trump’s handling of it.
That mark nevertheless represents a high point for the president, whose overall approval in the poll stands at 38 percent, an especially dismal rating amid a strong economy. It's a dichotomy that marks what may be the key turning point Trump's 2020 race for reelection: the president should be coasting to another term based on the economic picture, but is instead trailing leading Democratic contenders in national polling.
Trump’s standing — and the gap between it and voter sentiment about the economy — should be a flashing warning signal to his camp as he gears up for reelection. It also points to a potential opportunity for improvement, Republican pollsters say.
“If you took on balance what people are hearing from the White House, my sense is you would see that people are hearing more about other things than the economy,” says GOP pollster David Winston told me. “The challenge here for the White House as they’re looking forward is to get more focused on what he’s done on the economy. It hasn’t happened on the scale it needs to at this point.”
A deeper look into the numbers reveals the shape of Trump’s problem. Winston points to 2016 exit polling of those who voted in House races that found only 36 percent rated the economy as excellent or good, while 63 percent said it was not so good or poor. By 2018, exit polling of House voters in the midterms shows those numbers had flipped, with 68 percent giving the economy positive marks and 31 percent rating it negatively.
Yet the president hasn’t enjoyed a similar lift in his numbers. It’s evidence, Republican pollster Whit Ayers says, that voters are “evaluating Trump’s job approval based on his conduct and behavior in office rather than the state of the economy.”
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-finance-202/2019/07/02/the-finance-202-trump-should-be-worried-about-gap-between-his-standing-and-strong-economy/5d1a99da1ad2e552a21d5202/?utm_term=.d9c4967c0697
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