Who is still voting for Trump today?

Trump
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES – 2016/11/09: “Make America Great Again” red baseball caps, signature headwear of the Donald Trump campaign and its supporters, stand on sale on 6th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in the second hour after Election Day as election results point to a shock Trump win. (Photo by David Cliff/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Pew recently ran a poll (June 16 to 22, 2020) asking people who they would vote for, Trump or Biden?

In the context of a world where an utterly incompetent federal response has resulted in a rapidly climbing body count from a pandemic that is completely out of control, and also protests in the streets demanding racial justice, and even the tear-gassing of peaceful protesters simply for a propaganda photo op, you have to wonder who is still seriously rolling with “Yep, this is my guy, this is the man I want in charge”.

Survey Results – Approval

Roughly seven-in-ten white evangelical Protestants (72%) say they approve of the way Trump is handling his job … but …. the share of white evangelicals who say they “very strongly” approve of Trump’s performance is now at 59%, down 8 points from 67% in April.

Here is how the survey results pan out over time and across the various religious groups …

Where will the Votes Go?

Quite independent of the approval rating is where votes will go. Often people don’t approve of a candidate, but they will still hold their nose and vote that way because they perceive the alternative as even worse.

In response to the question “If the election where held today, who would you vote for?” we find different numbers.

82% of white evangelical Protestant registered voters would vote for Trump or lean toward voting for him, while 17% say they would back the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Joe Biden.

Back in 2016 77% of white evangelical Protestant voters backed Trump.

Here is how the numbers for this question panned out …

Implications

This of course is just one poll and is at best an indication of which way the political wind is blowing at a point in time.

The reality is that most of the polls, like this one, do reveal that Biden will probably win, but it is not a done deal, there is still a great deal of support for Trump.

It truly makes no rational sense

Just how delusional to you have to be to seriously embrace the idea that Biden would be poor or terrible, but Trump would be fine. 

It should perhaps not surprise us. We have already seen that no amount of pussy grabbing mattered, and so why should anything else that has happened change minds?

What it does of course do is point to what is coming in the months ahead. He needs those evangelical votes, so he will continue to lie to them and pander to them, and they will continue to lap it all up.

Is this adoration for Trump utter stupidity?

I recently covered this, but it is worth repeating.

Consider for a moment what we have seen.

What they don’t get is that our succumbing to frustration, thinking of them as stupid, may very well be wrong, but it’s also…hear me…charitable. Because if they are NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.

(Hat tip to Ryan Shead for the above)

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