The Unfavorability Gap: Team Trump is gonna make the worst mistake of this election cycle.

It is not a good idea

Shankar Narayan
4 min readSep 4, 2024

--

The Trump campaign has not committed to this path yet, but I am fairly confident that they will. I may be jumping the gun, but I don’t see a way out for them, and they will most likely commit to this risk.

Take a look at the favorability gap between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

Screenshot from CNN

Trump is favored by 33% of Americans.

Now, take a look at his approval rating throughout his presidency. Notice the baseline.

Screnshot from 538. I added the red sketch and the text.

Throughout his presidency, Trump’s approval rating, at the lower end, consistently hovered in the mid-thirties. His current favorability rating remains in the same range — mid-thirties. This reflects the size of the MAGA base in the United States and hardcore Republicans, not the entire Republican voter coalition.

Donald Trump is now viewed favorably only by the MAGA base. Compared to the support…

--

--

Shankar Narayan
Shankar Narayan

Written by Shankar Narayan

He didn't care what he had or what he had left, he cared only about what he must do.

Responses (36)