Photo: Daniel Torok, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
President Donald Trump's public approval rating has inched higher to 32 percent, up one percentage point from his record low a week earlier, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday — one week before the November 3 midterm elections that will decide which party controls Congress.
The five-day nationwide poll also showed that registered voters broadly favored Democrats over Republicans by 47 percent to 36 percent when asked which party they would vote for in what is known as a "generic ballot" question. Some 11 percent said they did not know who they would vote for if the election were held today.
A slightly tighter race — but still a wide gap
The 11-point Democratic lead is one percentage point tighter than in the Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on October 19. The latest poll additionally asked undecided voters which party they were leaning toward. Factoring in their responses, the national race appeared somewhat tighter, with Democrats leading by 9 percentage points, 50 percent to 41 percent.
The poll was conducted online among 1,679 U.S. adults, including 1,280 registered voters, and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points for all adults and 3 points for registered voters. Trump's fellow Republicans are fighting to retain the party's majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, and losing control of either chamber could complicate his agenda in the last two years of his second term.
What national polls can — and cannot — say
Generic ballot polls measure national public sentiment, but they do not capture the state-by-state and district-by-district contests that determine control of the Senate and House, contests in which Republicans hold some structural advantages. Political analysts generally see Democrats as having a good chance of winning control of the House, but think they face a steeper climb to win the Senate.
That distinction matters in a midterm cycle where individual Senate races — including an unexpectedly competitive contest in Mississippi, where Trump rallied on Monday night for Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith — could decide the chamber even as the national mood moves against the president's party.
A closing week of high-stakes campaigning
Trump has spent the final days of the campaign on a nationwide rally blitz, telling voters to view the midterms as if he were on the ballot, while Democrats have countered with their own heavyweights: former President Barack Obama stumped in Cleveland and Detroit over the weekend, accusing Trump of corruption and deriding his strategy on Iran.
On Monday, Trump also announced that the U.S. would give $1 million to anyone who reported voter fraud that leads to an arrest and conviction, barely a week before the midterms, Reuters reported. The announcement came as his administration pursues legal action over ballots in California — an effort a federal appeals court rejected on Monday, refusing to halt the counting of certain mail-in ballots in the state.
What to watch before November 3
With one week to go, the numbers point to a difficult election night for Republicans — but the race has tightened slightly, and the undecided 11 percent, plus the leaners who narrow the gap to nine points, leave room for movement. The next national polls, and the early-vote totals already coming in, will show whether Trump's one-point recovery is the start of a trend or a blip at the bottom of his presidency's polling.
Sources: Reuters/Ipsos poll via Reuters; BusinessWorld; The Economic Times; Business Standard.