On July 16, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held a joint press conference in Helsinki, where the American president sided with the Russian dictator over the U.S. intelligence community. Asked about Russian hacks of the Democratic National Committee’s server in 2016, Trump said, “My people came to me, Dan Coats and some others, they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Trump caught widespread flak for his statements, from both his usual opponents and some of his usual allies, and he tried to walk back his statements a day later—claiming that he’d meant to say “wouldn’t” instead of “would” and affirming that he believes Russia did interfere with the election. He still insisted, though, that it “could be other people” and that “there was no collusion at all” between his presidential campaign and Moscow. Washington (understandably) spent the rest of the week reacting and re-reacting to the news.
What do the voters think? Is this incident just more of what they’ve already seen from Trump, or could his coddling of Putin damage his overall approval rating? YouGov, Ipsos, SurveyMonkey, Marist, Quinnipiac, the Washington Post, and CBS News have all released polls that asked respondents directly about the Helsinki summit. These show Trump getting middling to low marks.
His best results were in the Huffington Post/YouGov and Axios/SurveyMonkey polls. YouGov found that 41 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s meeting with Putin, 35 percent disapprove, and the rest are unsure. SurveyMonkey found that 40 percent of respondents approve of the way Trump handled the press conference and that 79 percent of Republicans approve.
The Washington Post, Ipsos, Marist, Quinnipiac, and CBS News numbers were all much less favorable for Trump. According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 33 percent of adults approve of Trump’s handling of the meeting with Putin, and 50 percent disapprove. More importantly, only 66 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of ideological conservatives approve of Trump’s handling of the meeting. Those numbers might seem fine at first glance (they’re above 50 percent, after all). But we live in a polarized, hyperpartisan era in which 80 to 90 percent of the GOP approves of Trump’s overall job performance. So slipping into the 60s or 70s with Republicans is not a great number for the president.
The CBS News numbers were similar—only 32 percent of its respondents approve of Trump’s handling of the meeting, with 68 percent of Republicans approving.
An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist post-Helsinki poll showed further discontent with Trump—65 percent of registered voters (and 47 percent of Republicans) say Trump was “not tough enough” on Russia at the sumit. According to a Quinnipiac poll, 52 percent of voters see the meeting as a failure for the United States.
The Daily Beast/Ipsos poll had the greatest warning signs: 49 percent say Trump was “too deferential” to Putin and only 26 percent believe the Trump administration could prevent future attacks from Russia.
Despite these tough numbers, the president’s overall rating hasn’t moved much. Gallup’s weekly poll (which ran from Monday the 16th through the 22nd) shows Trump’s approval rating at 42 percent. A week earlier Gallup had him at 43 percent. Rasmussen Reports had Trump’s approval at 45 percent before Helsinki, and in their first fully post-Helsinki poll they have him at 44 percent. Reuters/Ipsos had Trump’s approval rating going slightly up post-Helsinki poll (44 percent among registered voters vs. 41 percent), though a small movement like that could just be noise. YouGov had Trump at 38 percent right after Helsinki (which isn’t a great number), but he’s bounced around in the surveys YouGov has released since then (its online panel allows it to collect data and publish quickly).
These are not good numbers, but they’re not catastrophic.
Trump’s approval rating on Helsinki is low, and it lags his overall approval rating (which has been hovering at 43 percent for about a month in the Real Clear Politics average). But his issue-specific approval ratings have often been lower than his overall rating.
According to an Economist/YouGov poll taken before the Helsinki summit, Trump’s job approval among registered voters was just 43 percent. But his approval ratings on gay rights, abortion, the environment, Medicare, Social Security, women’s rights, the budget deficit, education, civil rights, health care, gun control, and foreign policy were all under 43 percent. Put simply, Trump’s Helsinki numbers were bad, but they were in the neighborhood of his numbers on other important issues.
The polls that allow us to do clean before-and-after comparisons of Trump’s approval rating, moreover, don’t yet show any big movement for Trump. It’s possible that future polls will. But it’s just as possible that his showing in Helsinki isn’t making much of a dent in Trump’s overall approval.
And that is the biggest limitation in this sort of empirical, poll-based analysis: We don’t yet know how long the broader Helsinki story (e.g., reactions to Trump’s performance, continued discussion about it in the press and Congress, etc.) is going to run. Only a few news stories (the healthcare fights of 2017, the tax reform bill, Roy Moore, and James Comey) have really damaged Trump’s approval rating, and these have all been part of the news for extended periods of time.
Trump and the GOP, for example, tried to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act for months in the spring and summer of 2017. Those bills generally polled poorly, and the constant media focus on their failures dragged down Trump’s approval rating. Similarly, the GOP tax-reform bill was the subject of a shorter but still notable public debate. The bill seems to have depressed Trump’s approval rating at first—though it became significantly more popular after it was passed into law.
The president’s approval rating hit its low point in December 2017—right around the time when Republican Roy Moore (who was credibly accused of having improper sexual contact with teenagers while he was in his 30s) was defeated by Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama special election. Moore was the biggest story in politics for at least two months, and Trump’s association with him likely hurt the president’s ratings.
Trump also took a hit when he fired FBI director James Comey. But it’s hard to disentangle the longer-term effects of the Comey firing from those of other ongoing stories like the health care fight. The Comey storyline, like the others, stayed in the headlines for weeks and seemed to measurably lower Trump’s poll numbers.
In each of these cases, Trump’s approval rating seems to have responded to sustained negative press coverage. These events hung over Trump throughout most of 2017. And much of the increase in his approval rating since then can be chalked up to their leaving the headlines.
If the Helsinki story sticks around, it could have a similar effect on Trump’s numbers. His performance at the summit made him look weak and cut against the perception that Trump is a strong, intelligent leader. More significantly, Helsinki could be another straw on the camel’s back: something that doesn’t change Trump’s approval rating now but inches the broader Russia story closer to a breaking point.
