Something confounding is happening in America: Donald Trump, once the least liked presidential officeholder and reviled by nearly two-thirds of the country by the time he left office, is getting more popular.
For the loyal Vox reader, that statement may be hard to believe. Yes, the twice-impeached, multiply indicted former president is still generally disliked: The latest New York Times/Siena poll places his favorability rating at a “weak” 44 percent. But that’s still higher than his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, who is viewed favorably by just 38 percent of registered voters. As views of Biden have been getting more negative, views of Trump have also been getting more positive.
Across multiple kinds of polling and public opinion surveys, Trump’s favorability appears to have stabilized at a higher place than three years ago. Views of Trump have been modestly improving for most Americans and have actually increased significantly among Black and Latino Americans, younger voters, and working-class people.
Those shifts are apparent if you dig into the numbers a bit. In Gallup’s surveys of US adults, for example, Trump ended 2023 with his highest favorability ratings since the eve of the 2020 election.
That was true for young adults, aged 18 to 34, where Trump’s popularity plummeted as he tried to overturn the 2020 election but has rebounded since. Forty-two percent of young adults saw him favorably in October 2020, but that dropped to 28 percent in January 2021. His favorability bounced back to 42 percent by December 2023.
The same pattern held among nonwhite Americans, 27 percent of whom saw Trump favorably in October 2020. That plunged to 15 percent in January 2021 but had rebounded back to 28 percent by November 2022. The rebound is even more pronounced among Americans making less than $40,000 a year. Thirty-seven percent saw him favorably in October 2020, while 32 percent said that in January 2021. But that number jumped to 48 percent by…
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