Trump’s Image Among Republicans Continues to Tilt Positive

Via Gallup

 

Trump's Image Among Republicans Continues to Tilt Positive

 

Story Highlights

  • Between 54% and 61% of Republicans have viewed Trump favorably since July
  • Trump’s image more negative than other GOP front-runners in previous years
  • Republicans who view Trump positively are older, more likely to be men

PRINCETON, N.J. — Republicans nationwide remain more positive than negative in their views of Donald Trump, with 55% viewing him favorably and 41% unfavorably so far in March. Despite Trump’s extraordinary journey since last summer as the central — and controversial — focus of the 2016 election, Republicans’ views of the billionaire businessman have generally held steady. His image today is roughly where it was last July.

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These trend data are based on Gallup Daily tracking of more than 1,600 Republicans who have rated Trump each month since July. Overall, Trump has averaged a 57% favorable rating and a 37% unfavorable rating among Republicans over that period. Since Trump’s favorable rating peaked at 61% in January, it has been lower each of the past two months. But from a broad perspective, the month-to-month changes have been relatively minor.

The relative stability in Trump’s favorable percentage — ranging between 54% and 61% — shows that his supporters are fairly locked into their support and are not dramatically affected by what Trump says or does, or by what the media and rival candidates say about him. This, in turn, may reflect that Trump was well-known early on, and that many Republicans formed a fairly firm opinion of him in the early stages of the campaign.

On a comparative basis, Trump’s popularity among Republicans is roughly similar to where Mitt Romney was in February 2012 (59% favorable, 31% unfavorable), although fewer Republicans had an opinion of Romney four years ago, giving him a higher net favorable than Trump’s today. In March of election years prior to that, the eventual Republican nominee had much higher favorable ratings among his own partisans, with John McCain in 2008, George W. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1996 all earning favorable ratings among Republicans in the 80% to 90% range.

Few Young, Female Republicans Are Pro-Trump

Opinions of Trump essentially divide the GOP into two segments — the pro-Trump majority and the anti-Trump minority. This division is based on opinions of Trump and does not necessarily correlate with actual voting. But the opinion data can be used to examine the types of Republicans who like Trump and those who don’t.

The age difference between the two groups is significant; 59% of pro-Trump Republicans are aged 50 and older, compared with 43% of the anti-Trump group.

Another key difference between the two groups is how older men and younger women in the GOP base react to Trump. A third of pro-Trump Republicans are men aged 50 and older, compared with 21% of anti-Trump Republicans. Likewise, 14% of pro-Trump Republicans are women aged 18 to 49, contrasted with 31% of anti-Trump Republicans.

Age and Gender Composition of Pro- and Anti-Trump Republicans
Gender/Age distribution of pro-Trump Republicans% Gender/Age distribution of anti-Trump Republicans% Gap between pro- and anti-Trump Republicans%
Men aged 18 to 49 27 26 1
Men aged 50+ 33 21 12
Women aged 18 to 49 14 31 -17
Women aged 50+ 26 22 4
March 1-20, 2016
Gallup Daily tracking

Pro-Trump Group Less Educated, Less Religious

Older Americans are less likely to be college graduates than those who are younger, and this relationship helps explain the finding that pro-Trump supporters — who skew older — are less well-educated. Twenty-seven percent of pro-Trump Republicans are college graduates, compared with 39% of anti-Trump Republicans. But education has at least some effect in each age group, and pro-Trump Republicans are proportionately more likely to be 35- to 54-year-old non-college graduates, in particular.

Additionally, pro-Trump Republicans are significantly less likely to be highly religious than their anti-Trump counterparts: 44% of Trump’s Republican fans are highly religious versus 60% of his detractors.

The pro- and anti-Trump segments of the GOP differ modestly in terms of race and ethnicity. Within the constraints of the Republican Party’s highly white skew, 91% of pro-Trump Republicans are non-Hispanic whites, compared with 81% of anti-Trump Republicans.

Implications

It is possible that Donald Trump will not secure enough delegates before July’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland to have the nomination in hand when he arrives, leading to a contested convention. While some within the Republican Party are already plotting against Trump’s nomination, a majority of the rank-and-file members of the party — typically in the 55% to 60% range — have a favorable view of the businessman, and this has been a persistent finding over the last nine months. Thus, there is by no means a majority negative reaction to Trump among Republicans nationwide, even though his image may be less robust at this point than other front-runners in past elections, and less robust than Hillary Clinton’s is now among Democrats. Past Gallup research also indicates that Trump’s image may improve if he were to become the presumptive nominee.

The pro-Trump segment of the GOP does have some distinctive demographic characteristics. Pro-Trump Republicans are older, more likely to be male, less well-educated, more likely to be non-Hispanic white and less religious than the anti-Trump group. But these differences are not huge, suggesting that Trump’s appeal to Republicans goes beyond traditional demographic categories. Trump’s consistently favorable rating among over half of Republicans most likely reflects a combination of psychological and emotional factors leading to differences in the way those in his party perceive his style, personality, nonpolitical background, business credentials and policy promises.

These data are available in Gallup Analytics.

 

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kokoda
kokoda

Little johnny

Little Johnny was in the classroom bored to the back teeth on a Friday afternoon, and the teacher decided to have a game for the kids to get them thinking.

“Okay class. Now I’m going to say a famous quote, and the first person to tell me who said that quote, can have Monday off.” said the teacher.

‘Who is credited with writing the phrase, ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’?” asked the teacher.

Little Pham Lam Nguyen at the front of the class called out, ‘Shakespeare’.

‘Well done!’ said the teacher, ‘You can have Monday off.”

‘No thank you Miss. I am of Vietnamese origin and it is in our culture to study as hard as we can, so I will be here on Monday studying hard.’ said Little Pham Lam Nguyen.

‘Well okay,’ said the teacher.

The next quote is, “I had a dream!”

Little Fri Sum Kat also at the front yelled out “I bereiva it was Martin Ruther King!”

“Well done!” said the teacher. ‘You can have Monday off”

“No thank you miss I am of Chinese oligin and we also do not take time offa school. Education is everything to us, so I will be in on Monday studying hard too.” said little Fri Sum Kat.

‘Okay,’ said the teacher.

Then she heard a voice from the back of the classroom, “F***ing Asians!”

“Who said that?” yelled the teacher in an angry tone.

“Donald Trump!” yelled little Johnny. “See ya Tuesday

Anonymous
Anonymous

I gotta wonder about those holding an unfavorable view of him.

Perhaps they’d be happier as Democrats or sumpthin’.

James the Wanderer

The reason Gallup thinks Trump supporters are less educated is because educated people know better than to talk to pollsters; it’s a waste of time.

I’m well overeducated and am thinking about voting for Trump; mainly because he seems immune to polls.

rhs jr
rhs jr

Maybe Trump should hint he used MJ when he was young and stupid.

TC
TC

With the constant media hits and the GOP running $millions in negative ads against Trump, it’s a wonder Trump’s approval numbers are where they are. If you want a good laugh, pull up Yahoo Finance page. On any given day there’s at least 1 if not 2 or 3 hit pieces against Trump. It’s relentless.

That is one big difference between Democrats and Republicans: Democrats just need one reason to vote for their candidate, and Republicans only need one reason to vote against theirs (or take their ball and stay home crying, which is what they usually do.)

Rise Up

That bar chart is a clear indicator of what’s to come (i.e., more terrorism). Yeah, I’m stating the obvious but those numbers are scary. I wonder how accurate that poll is–if it reflects a true picture that one in four (26%) US Muslims favor terrorism, better watch your back at all times when in public.

Ed
Ed

Just my own opinion, but if Gallup constructs a poll like the one in the article and reports results of 55%+ to 41%- in favor of Trump, the actual breakdown is probably more like 85% for Trump to 11% against him.

In my own experience talking to people every day, the 55% vs 41% is nonsense. There just ain’t that many diehard koolaid drinkers out there before the convention hands them a candidate.

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