Bloomberg’s new poll, released Wednesday, contains a few surprises. For example, Trump’s approval rating is … not underwater.
No, really — his favorable/unfavorable percentage in this poll is 50/43. I don’t think this has ever happened before, but evidently he’s getting a bit of a honeymoon. Or at least, people are giving him a fair chance to make a second impression. (Hillary Clinton’s favorable/unfavorable rating, at 41/55, is about where it was during the campaign.)
Meanwhile, Obama’s favorable rating is very strong at 56/42. It hasn’t been that high in this poll since December 2009. But amid this Obama boomlet, the Democratic Party’s numbers are lousy. This poll has them underwater at 42/49, and the Quinnipiac Poll late last month had them at a much worse 35/56. The HuffPost/Pollster average shows Democrats currently have their worst ratings of 2016.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party’s rating is even — 44/44. This is, from what I can tell, the best they’ve tested in any poll since the last election.
But back to the Democrats: They’re a bit more out of favor than usual, and they need a new leader going forward. So the 364 Democrats in the sample were asked who they’d like it to be. The winner? Barack Obama, at 25 percent. He is followed by Bernie Sanders (24) and then Elizabeth Warren (17).
I entered the 2016 cycle with many theories in my head that proved to be false. But one of them has survived at least up now, and this poll hints at its truth yet again in multiple ways. Obama was not the leader of a successful political party. He was the successful leader of a party otherwise on life support. And even now, as Obama departs politics forever, an admittedly thin plurality of Democrats want him to be their leader still.
