The recent uptick in President Trump’s approval rating has most often been attributed to a strong economy. Feeling the impact of factors like low unemployment and Republican tax cut legislation, voters, so the theory goes, are responding with more positivity towards Trump.
I think that’s true to an extent, though Republicans should be careful to assume Trump’s respectable 43 percent approval rating (as of Wednesday) will preserve their control of Congress in November. But I think there may be something else too.
Reading The Great Revolt, Salena Zito and Brad Todd’s survey of Rust Belt Trump voters, I was struck by how often people cited the president’s approach to foreign policy as a key factor in their support of him. To be clear, Zito and Todd’s efforts were focused in one particular region of the country. But they picked up on a surprising amount of active disappointment with President Obama’s foreign policy, which was clearly perceived by these voters as weak, deferential, and embarrassing on the global stage. Trump tapped into that active disappointment with Obama’s approach and transformed it into active appreciation for his “America first” rhetoric.
Which brings us back to his approval rating, which could logically stand to see more fluctuation depending upon how voters react to Trump’s performance at the summit in Singapore.
Consider the timeline of Trump’s modest climb in the ratings. According to the RealClearPolitics average of his job approval, Trump’s rating started to rise from the high 30s in mid to late December, around the time GOP tax legislation was passed, going from 37 percent on Dec. 13 to 40.4 percent on Jan. 7. It hovered around 41 percent-42 percent until starting another small but meaningful climb in early March and then again in late April, spiking from 39.8 percent on March 7, to 42.8 percent on April 13, to 44.4 percent on May 5.
While that may well coincide with voters feeling more impacts of the tax cuts, it also coincides with Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the negotiations over the summit in North Korea.
It’s obviously difficult to separate the two variables. But a Politico-Morning Consult poll released Wednesday found that among voters who expressed approval for Trump’s job performance, there was an almost even divide between those who said economic issues and those who said security issues were at the fronts of their minds when voting for federal office.
All this is to suggest the most salient explanation that’s been offered for the recent bump in Trump’s approval rating may be overly simplistic. And that’s especially relevant this week as the world reacts to the historic negotiations in Singapore, where the president’s foreign policy was on display in a major way.
