Only Republicans Are Confident That Trump Is Choosing The Best People

The chart above reflects the results of the CNN / SSRS Poll -- done between December 5th and 8th of a nationwide sample of 1,011 adults, with a 3.8 point margin of error.
 

Only 28% Of Republicans Are Confident In Election Accuracy

The chart above is from the Gallup Poll -- done between September 3rd and 15th of a nationwide sample of 1,007 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.
 

Confidence In Supreme Court Is At A New Low (18%)

The chart above is from the AP / NORC Poll -- done between May 5th and December 20 of a nationwide sample of 3,544 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

WaPo Gives 5 Ways To Restore Confidence In Voting

Most Americans think our voting system is administered and counted fairly. But thanks to Trump's claims that there was massive fraud in the 2020 election, a significant portion of voters now doubt the system. The Washington Post editorial board gives us five ways to restore confidence in voting. Here are those five ways:

Publicly test machines before Election Day.

That would include inviting the media and the public to witness the testing of voting machines before elections so citizens could see for themselves the accuracy of the machines and safeguards against tampering. State websites should also feature explanations, in plain language, of steps being taken to keep machines secure.

Enact ballot tracking measures.

Think of the process by which consumers can follow a package ordered online. Under this proposal, voters could see their ballots move through every step of the process — from when it’s sent after they have requested one to a notification it has been received. California, for example, already allows voters to sign up for a text message letting them know their vote has been counted.

Require a paper trail.

Six states still use voting machines without a voter-verified paper audit trail: Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Tennessee and Texas. This provides fodder for conspiracy theories, especially in tight races. All but Mississippi and Tennessee have passed laws to phase out these machines.

Pre-canvass early ballots to speed up counting.

Twelve states — including battlegrounds Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — haven’t allowed election officials to process mailed-in ballots before Election Day. This delays the counting and, in 2020, fueled claims by then-President Donald Trump that the election was being stolen from him because his early lead evaporated as absentee ballots were tabulated.

Automatically conduct high-quality post-election audits.

States should consider requiring counties to quickly and publicly hand-count a random sample of paper ballots to spot-check the accuracy of mechanized counting. If done routinely, that could avert bizarre third-party audits like the one conducted in Arizona by Cyber Ninjas in 2021.

Most In Developed Nations Have Confidence In V.P. Harris

 

The Pew Research Center did a survey of at least 1,000 adults in 18 developed nations. They found that a majority overall (and in most countries) say they have confidence in Vice President Kamala Harris to do the right thing about world affairs.

Confidence In News Media Is At A Record Low

 

These charts are from Axios.com -- using figures from a recent Gallup Poll. They show that confidence in the news media is at an all-time low -- 16% for newspapers and 11% for television.

Confidence In Supreme Court Drops Sharply After Alito Draft

The chart above reflects the results of the Yahoo News / YouGov Poll -- done between May 3rd and 6th of a nationwide sample of 1,577 adults, with a 2.7 point margin of error.

It shows that confidence in the Supreme Court has dropped since the release of the Alito draft overturning Roe vs. Wade -- by about 20 points.

Percentage With Confidence In United States Institutions

The chart above reflects the results of the recent Gallup Poll -- done between June 1st and July 5th of a national sample of 1,381 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

Public Doesn't Have Confidence In Donald Trump

These charts reflect the results of the latest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between May 23rd and 26th of a national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,157 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3.2 points, and for registered voters is 3.4 points.

Early on, people were giving Trump the benefit of the doubt in his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic. But his lying and mishandling of the crisis has cost him support. Now adults who don't have confidence lead those that do by a 15 point margin. And it's worse among registered voters, where no confidence leads confidence by 17 points.

And he's also starting to lose support on the economy (his one issue where support outranked non-support before the virus struck). Now the non-confidence leads those who are confident by 4 points among adults, and 7 points among registered voters.

GOP Voters Are Losing Faith In The Republican Congress

It looks like the inability to govern displayed by the Republicans in Congress is not playing well with their own party's voters. About 67% (two out of every three) of Republican voters say their elected officials in Congress are out of touch with the voters, while only 25% think they are doing a good job. Those are amazingly bad numbers for a political party that controls both Congress and the White House.

The chart was made from information in a new Rasmussen Poll -- done between July 20th and 23rd of a random national sample of 1,000 likely voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

There Is A Large Gender Gap In The United States

These charts are from a survey by the Pew Research Center -- done between April 5th and 11th of a random national sample of 1,501 adults, with a 2.9 point margin of error.

The top chart shows the percentage who say they have confidence in the future of this country. Note that in 2017, there is a much larger gender gap on this question than there was in 2015. In 2015, the gap was only 4 points between men and women. That gap is now 24 points. Women are far less confident in the future under Donald Trump than men.

And that gender gap shows up in both political parties. The Democrats had a 4 point gap in 2015 -- and that has grown to 18 points in 2017. The Republicans had a 7 point gender gap in 2015, which has grown to 28 points in 2017.

The bottom chart shows the gender gap in a different way -- the presidential job approval among men and women for the last six presidents during April of their first term in office. Trump does worse than any president among both men and women, but he does far worse among women. The job approval gender gap for Trump is 13 points -- with women showing 33% approval, and men 46% approval.

This huge (and growing) gender gap bodes ill for the GOP in 2018 -- and for Trump in 2020.

Confidence On Trump Fixing The Economy Is Weak

The chart above reflects the numbers of a new Gallup Poll -- done on April 21st and 22nd of a random national sample of 1,024 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

Trump has bragged that he would be a great president on the economy -- spurring economic growth and creating a massive amount of new jobs. The chart shows the public is not buying into those claims right now. Only 48% of the public has a great deal/fair amount of confidence in Trump on the economy, while 51% have little or no confidence in Trump's ability to handle the economy effectively.

Those are abnormally low figures for a president in April of the first year of his first term. At this same time in their presidencies, George W. Bush had a 20 point higher rating than Trump and Barack Obama had a 23 point higher rating.

The public likes to give presidents of both parties the benefit of the doubt as they begin their first term, but not with Trump. Many more Americans think Trump either doesn't have the economic knowledge necessary to fix the economy, or that he will simply act to better his own wealth (and that of his rich cronies) -- and so far, Trump has done nothing to dispel that.

Public Is Not Confident That Trump Will Improve Things

This chart was made from information in a recent Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between December 17th and 20th of a random national sample of 1,662 adults (including 1,419 registered voters) and has a margin of error of 2.9 points.

Donald Trump has made a lot of promises about how he is going to make things better. So far, the public is not buying it. The issue that gets the highest percentage saying it will be better in 2017 is the economy -- but even there only 36% believe that, while the rest think things will stay as they are or get worse.

In short, no one but the die-hard trumpistas have confidence that Trump will make things better.

93% Of Americans Have No Confidence In U.S. Congress

There have been numerous polls recently showing that the American people do not approve of the job that Congress is doing. The average job approval of Congress in the most recent polls rests at a pitiful 12.8%. That's bad, but a new Gallup Poll shows the ridiculous antics of the 113th Congress has disgusted the public so much that they no longer have any confidence in Congress as an institution. A record low of only 7% say they have either a great deal or a lot of confidence in Congress -- meaning 93% of Americans have no confidence in Congress.

That's only about one-third of the confidence the people have in Big Business, organized labor, or the banks. And it's about one-fourth the confidence the public has in other government institutions, like the presidency or the Supreme Court. Americans currently are unhappy with a lot of American institutions, but none of them have any where near the lack of confidence shown in Congress.

Republicans are still trying to convince the public that the 2014 election is a referendum on President Obama (who is not even on the ballot). But this survey shows, as many others have, that the coming election will be about this very unpopular Congress (whose members are on the November ballot).

This latest Gallup Poll was done between June 5th and 8th of a random national sample of 1,027 adults, with a margin of error of 4 points.

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I was a little surprised at how poorly organized religion did on the confidence score. While more than 70% of Americans claim to be christian, less than half (45%) say they have a lot of confidence in organized religion. Is this a backlash against fundamentalist attempts to legislate religion?

Bush Not Trusted Worldwide

According to the website World Public Opinion.org, George Bush is one of the most unpopular and least trusted leaders in the world. Only Ahmadinejad and Musharraf are ranked as low as Bush.

WPO.org did a survey of 20 countries, with nearly 20,000 respondents. They asked the respondents what leaders they "trusted to do the right thing". There were only two countries that gave Bush a higher positive rating than a negative rating (and the United States was not one of the two) -- Nigeria and India. Thailand was evenly split.

Overall, Bush received a 23% positive rating and a 67% negative rating. In the U.S., he had a 42% positive and 56% negative. Here are how the leaders were ranked:

Ban Ki-Moon (United Nations) 35%

Putin (Russia) 32%

Brown (Great Britain) 30%

Hu Jintao (China) 28%

Sarkozy (France) 26%

Bush (United States) 23%

Ahmadinejad (Iran) 22%

Musharraf (Pakistan) 18%

According to the director of WPO.org, the mistrust of George Bush has created a worldwide vacuum in leadership and no one has really stepped up to fill it. Sadly though, even the leaders of China and Russia are trusted more than the current leader of the United States.

Bush has been a disaster as a leader, both at home and abroad.