The Normalizing: Fun With Numbers
November 23, 2016

Headline at Politico right now:

Poll: Trump's popularity soars after election

"Soars"?

Donald Trump’s popularity is rising in the days since his election, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll of registered voters.

Forty-six percent of voters now have a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of the president-elect. Twelve percent have a somewhat unfavorable opinion and 34 percent have a very unfavorable opinion of him.

It’s a dramatic uptick since the election. Trump’s favorability has grown 9 points, 37 percent to 46 percent, compared to a Morning Consult poll right before the election -- while his unfavorability has dropped 15 points, from 61 percent to 46 percent.

So in "a dramatic uptick," Trump's favorability "soars" to mere parity, 46%-46%.

How does this compare? The implication is that it's right in line with what happened to previous presidents:

"Trump’s favorability among voters has reached new highs since he became president-elect,” said Morning Consult cofounder and Chief Research Officer Kyle Dropp. "This honeymoon phase in common for new presidents. For example, Obama saw about a 20 point swing in his favor following the 2008 election."

Let's check Polling Report. What were Barack Obama's favorable/unfavorable numbers in polls taken in the five weeks after Election Day 2008?

CNN : 75%-22%
Fox: 68%-24%
Quinnipiac: 67%-19%
CBS: 55%-12%
NBC: 45%-22%

No parity here.

We've already seen this comparison:

But the Politico headline is right-wing clickbait -- and will probably become mainstream-media conventional wisdom.

Although if we're lucky, this, from Pew, will influence the narrative:

0_1

But the Politico headline is probably the story the media likes, so I'm not optimistic.

Crossposted at No More Mr. Nice Blog

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon