Trump’s first hundred days and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad polls

There are stories everywhere this weekend around the theme, as a CNN headline has it, that “Trump’s approval at 100 days is lower than any president in at least seven decades.” If you want to dig through some of the numbers, in addition to the CNN poll conducted by SSRS, there is an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, an Associated Press/NORC Centre for Public Affairs poll, and a New York Times/Siena poll among others.

A president committed to legitimate democratic processes would be concerned.

Though numbers will obviously vary from poll to poll, the story is the same. As per the CNN,
“Trump’s 41% approval rating is the lowest for any newly elected president at 100 days dating back at least to Dwight Eisenhower – including Trump’s own first term.” A mere 22% approve of the job he is doing, and “twice as many, 45%, say they strongly disapprove.

Notably, the partisan divide is as real as ever with “86% of Republicans approving and 93% percent of Democrats disapproving.” Perhaps crucial, though, is that his support among independents has declined considerably, now at about 31%, which, as these results indicate, match “his first-term low point with that group and about the same as his standing with them in January 2021.”

You don’t win national elections without attracting a very healthy swath of independents and, at least at the moment, Trump is failing to do that. Of course, Trump is not supposed to run again, and let’s stick with that assumption for the moment, so does he care about the electoral prospects of the Republican Party either in the 2025 mid-terms or in the 2028 general election? All evidence suggests this man is one of the biggest narcissists in an occupation that breeds them, so not caring what happens once he is gone makes a certain sense. But does he really want to deal with a Democratic House in the final two years of his term with all of the congressional investigations that could lead to? And while taking the Senate is going to be a harder hill to climb for Democrats in 2026, if Trump’s numbers continue to slide, there could be opportunities beyond Maine and North Carolina for Democrats.

There is some logic behind the thought that administrations do the hard stuff early and then ease off over time to win back previously disgruntled voters. For a rational political operative, that is a possibility. Does this describe Donald Trump? Maybe not. While he has backed off certain actions like aspects of his tariff plan, he continues to do things that growing numbers of Americans don’t like, notably independents.

But is it possible Trump is not too fussed?

The thing he has done most consistently since coming the office again is to compromise democratic institutions and the ability of the citizenry to fight back. His administration has recently arrested a judge, which is clearly intended to frighten members of the judiciary who might oppose him. He has threatened institutions of higher learning for teaching ideas of which he disapproves. He has successfully cowed law firms he deems unfriendly to his agenda. His attorney general is signalling to journalists that they could be in legal jeopardy for their reporting.

All of that is frightening enough, but here’s the kicker. Trump issued an executive order a while back that would

change the administration of U.S. elections, including requiring people to prove their citizenship when registering to vote…”

The order, titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” also would change the certification standards for voting systems, potentially forcing states to rapidly replace millions of dollars in voting equipment, and it would prohibit the counting of ballots postmarked by Election Day but received afterwards, which 18 states and Washington, D.C., currently permit.

On April 24th, a federal judge blocked part of the executive order writing that President Trump “did not have the authority to require documentary proof of citizenship for all voters.”

“Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the states — not the president — with the authority to regulate federal elections,” wrote Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the Federal District Court in Washington. She pointed to federal voting legislation being considered in Congress, adding that the president could not “short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”

Whatever the merits of any of the given changes Trump is proposing, the point is that he is trying to take control of the electoral process itself. We seem to have forgotten that for four long years, from the time Trump lost to Biden, until Trump won reelection, he spoke incessantly of his contention the election was stolen from him. Do we really think that, now with the power of the federal government behind him, he would fail to assert that power when it comes to elections?

So far, the courts have pushed back, which is a great sign. I doubt that means Trump will stop trying.

If the only poll that counts is the one on election day, then maybe the results we are now seeing are of little consequence to the president, if he can subvert the will of the people in any number of ways.

This may sound spooky, conspiratorial, and unrealistic, but it’s not like Trump is hiding precisely what he has in mind.

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