Belle

The US government does not respect

the personal freedoms of its people:

56%

How do views of Trump compare with other global leaders?

Across 36 countries, a median of 23% of adults have confidence in U.S. President Donald Trump to do the right thing regarding world affairs.

These findings come from a new Pew Research Center survey of 42,151 adults in 36 countries, conducted Feb. 8-May 13, 2026. They are part of a larger report on global views of the United States and its president.

Where do people have more positive views of Trump than other leaders?

Colombia, Hungary, Israel and the Philippines stand out as four countries where views of Trump are more positive than views of other leaders we asked about.

• In Colombia, 43% have confidence in Trump – higher than the 37% who have confidence in Macron and the roughly third or fewer who have confidence in the other leaders.
• In Hungary, 44% have confidence in Trump, compared with around a third or fewer who say the same of Macron, Xi or Putin. Confidence in Netanyahu and Zelenskyy is even lower.
• In Israel, 66% have confidence in Trump, while only a third or fewer have confidence in the other leaders. (We did not ask about confidence in Netanyahu.)
• In the Philippines, 68% have confidence in Trump, while 61% have confidence in Macron and around half or more have confidence in the other leaders.

In some other countries, including several middle-income nations (as defined by World Bank lending groups) like Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, Nigeria and Peru, Trump is among the leaders rated most positively. In most of these countries, confidence in Trump is similar to confidence in either Xi or Macron.

In three European countries – France, Germany and Greece – confidence ratings for Trump are among the lowest of the leaders asked about, often tied with Putin, Netanyahu or both. For instance, 16% of Germans have confidence in Trump and similar shares say the same about Putin (15%) and Netanyahu (15%), a sharp contrast to the 72% of Germans who have confidence in Macron.

Where do people have more negative views of Trump than other leaders?

Trump is either the leader with the lowest confidence rating or tied for lowest in many countries. This is the case, for example, in the United States’ neighbors to both the south and north:

• In Mexico, 11% have confidence in Trump, compared with 18% who have confidence in Netanyahu. Around three-in-ten have confidence in Putin and Xi.
• Canadians have similarly low levels of confidence in Putin (18%), Trump (20%) and Netanyahu (23%) and relatively more confidence in Xi (35%), Macron (59%) and Zelenskyy (65%).

In three European countries – France, Germany and Greece – confidence ratings for Trump are among the lowest of the leaders asked about, often tied with Putin, Netanyahu or both. For instance, 16% of Germans have confidence in Trump and similar shares say the same about Putin (15%) and Netanyahu (15%), a sharp contrast to the 72% of Germans who have confidence in Macron.

Trump tends to receive particularly low marks relative to other leaders in the Muslim-majority publics surveyed. Among Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, for example, only 4% have confidence in Trump – similar to the 2% who say the same of Netanyahu, but much lower than the roughly four-in-ten who have confidence in Putin and Xi. In Malaysia, too, Trump ties with Netanyahu for the lowest rating.

Down Down Down

I've long held that there's something wrong with the polling, and I'm coming to believe that polling is more a matter of finding out how well your propaganda campaign is going than anything else.

While that may always have been the case to some extent, I think it's more and more likely that bigger and bigger chunks of humanity are being more and more mis-informed and dis-informed.

That said, dive right in - it's a long one.

Trump Gets Negative Reviews Internationally as Fewer Say U.S. Is a Reliable Partner

36-country survey finds declining ratings for the U.S. amid rising concerns about its foreign policy and the health of its democracy

About this research
A new Pew Research Center survey finds negative – and often overwhelmingly negative – views of U.S. President Donald Trump in regions around the globe.

A bar chart showing How people in 36 countries see the U.S. and Trump

Across 36 nations polled, a median of 23% of adults express confidence in his leadership of world affairs. In many countries, confidence in Trump has slipped since last year.

Overall ratings for the United States are also largely negative. Favorable views of the country have declined in many places over the past year, including double-digit drops in Indonesia, Italy, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey.

What is a median?

In this analysis, median scores are used to help readers see overall patterns in the data. The median percentage is the middle number in a list of all percentages sorted from highest to lowest.

There are seven nations in the study where a majority of adults rate the U.S. positively. The highest rating (81% favorable) comes from Israel. Some of the lowest ratings are from predominantly Muslim publics, such as Malaysians, Pakistanis, Turks, and Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. (We were unable to survey in Gaza.)

Trump gets mostly poor marks for his handling of key foreign policy issues, including tariffs, Gaza, Iran, Greenland and the Russia-Ukraine war.

The survey reveals striking changes over time in how people perceive the U.S. and its role in world affairs.

A set of line charts showing that Decreasing shares see the U.S. as a reliable partner
The share of the public who considers the U.S. a reliable partner has declined steeply in many countries since we last asked this question in 2022, during Joe Biden’s presidency.

This downward turn in opinion has taken place in several nations with which the U.S. has longstanding economic and security ties. For example, in Canada, 83% described the U.S. as a reliable partner in 2022, compared with 35% today. Large declines have also been measured in some of America’s key Asia-Pacific partners.

A 36-country median of 35% say the U.S. contributes to peace and stability around the world. The share of people who hold this view is down significantly in many countries since 2023.

Similarly, the share who think the U.S. takes into account the interests of other countries when making foreign policy decisions has declined in most nations where trends from 2023 are available.

For instance, 60% of Germans three years ago said the U.S. considers other countries’ interests, but that share has dropped to 23% today. German public opinion is now similar to or more negative than what was measured during George W. Bush’s presidency, when many people in Europe and elsewhere strongly opposed the war in Iraq and other major elements of U.S. foreign policy. In surveys conducted from 2002 to 2007, between 27% and 53% of Germans said the U.S. considers the interests of countries like theirs when making foreign policy.

Our polling over the past few years has found widespread concerns about the health of American democracy in many places, and the new survey shows that large shares of people around the world no longer believe the U.S. respects individual liberty.

A 36-country median of 39% say the U.S. government respects the personal freedoms of its people, while 56% say it does not.

In 12 of the 13 countries where we last asked about this in 2021, during the Biden administration, there have been double-digit declines in the shares who say the U.S. respects personal freedoms.

Over a longer span, some of these shares have fallen even farther in several of these nations.

A 2013 Center survey represented a high point for this measure in several nations we have polled regularly. That year, as Barack Obama began his second term as president, three-quarters or more in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea and the United Kingdom said the U.S. respected personal freedoms.

However, in 2014, this view became less common in some countries after disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the government’s vast capacity to intercept communications around the world.

This year, the share of the public saying the U.S. respects personal freedoms is the lowest it’s been in several countries we have surveyed for years, including Australia, Brazil, Chile, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, South Africa, South Korea and Sweden.

For this report, we surveyed 42,151 people in 36 countries from Feb. 8 to May 13, 2026.

In Israel, views of Trump are considerably more positive among Jews (79% have confidence in him) than among Arabs (13%).

And in Nigeria, Trump receives more positive ratings among Christians (87%) than Muslims (33%). Since last year, confidence in him has risen by 6 percentage points among Christians but dropped by 41 points among Muslims.

There are 26 places surveyed in which 30% of the public or less expresses confidence in the U.S. president. In Turkey, as well as in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, that share is in the single digits.

Confidence in Trump has declined since last year in 16 of 24 nations where trend data is available. There is no country surveyed in which attitudes toward him have become more positive.

In 18 of 27 countries where we measure political ideology, people on the right are more likely than those on the left to express confidence in Trump. He receives particularly positive marks from Europeans with favorable views of right-wing populist parties. Still, even among supporters of some of these parties, Trump’s ratings have worsened since last year.

How do ratings of Trump compare with previous presidents?

Pew Research Center has measured international attitudes toward U.S. presidents for over two decades, charting large shifts in public opinion in many regions. Findings from France, Germany, Spain and the U.K. highlight some long-term trends in views of recent presidents.

The latest ratings for Trump in these four nations, while low, tend to be slightly higher than at the end of his first term. They’re about equal to or somewhat higher than ratings for Bush at the end of his second term.

A line chart showing Confidence in U.S. presidents across Western Europe
Obama consistently received much higher ratings in these Western European countries during his two terms in the White House. Views of Biden were also relatively positive, although attitudes toward Biden turned more negative over the course of his presidency.

For more on confidence in Trump and previous U.S. presidents over time, refer to our detailed data sheet.

Do people approve of how Trump is handling major international issues?
We asked respondents whether they approve or disapprove of how Trump is dealing with eight key global issues. At least half of adults in most countries disapprove of how he is handling each of these.

In every nation surveyed, most or all interviews took place after the U.S. and Israel launched the military conflict with Iran on Feb. 28, 2026.

Overall, a median of 74% of adults across 36 nations disapprove of how Trump is dealing with Iran. Israel is the only country where a clear majority (73%) approve, though 51% also express this view in Kenya and Nigeria.

Relatively few approve in Pakistan (21%) and Turkey (5%), which share a border with Iran. Similarly, just 5% of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem approve.

To explore how the war may have affected overall views of the U.S., we conducted a separate analysis using a statistical technique called regression. The results suggest that as the war – and our survey fieldwork – progressed, attitudes toward the U.S. became more negative in some countries.

Trump gets his highest ratings on international humanitarian aid, though most disapprove of how he’s handling this issue. (We did not ask about knowledge of the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid or knowledge of its other policies.) Majorities approve of how he has dealt with humanitarian aid in five of the middle-income nations (as defined by World Bank lending groups) surveyed: the Philippines (66%), Kenya (65%), Sri Lanka (57%), Colombia (56%) and Peru (55%).

Trump gets his second-highest ratings on immigration. His immigration policies tend to be more popular among people on the ideological right, and especially Europeans who support right-wing populist parties.

A median of just 22% approve of the way Trump has dealt with Venezuela. Still, views are slightly more positive in some Latin American nations, including Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia (46%).

Trump receives low marks in Europe for his handling of both Greenland and the Russia-Ukraine war. For more, read: “European views of Trump and the U.S. are especially negative.”

There is no country in which a majority approves of how Trump is dealing with the conflict in Gaza. (At the time of our survey, a fragile ceasefire existed between Israel and Hamas.) Very few Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem approve (3%), while Israelis are divided: 48% approve and 48% disapprove, with Israeli Jews (57% approve) and Israeli Arabs (14%) expressing very different views.

The Trump administration’s tariff policies are widely unpopular. Kenya is the only country surveyed in which a majority (55%) approve of how Trump is handling this issue. Attitudes are especially negative in many nations with which the U.S. has major trade relationships, including the U.K. (27% approve), India (18%), Canada (17%), Japan (15%), South Korea (14%), Mexico (11%) and Germany (8%).

Do people around the world view the U.S. favorably or unfavorably?

Across the 36 countries surveyed, a median of 37% of adults express a favorable view of the U.S., while 57% have an unfavorable view.

In Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, opinions are largely negative: Seven-in-ten or more in many of these nations rate the U.S. unfavorably.

The U.S. receives its highest rating in Israel, at 81% favorable, while roughly eight-in-ten in Turkey and in the West Bank and East Jerusalem see the U.S. negatively.

In past surveys, the U.S. has received largely favorable ratings in the African nations surveyed. This year, views are relatively more positive than not in Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria. Still, favorable ratings are down 15 points since last year in Nigeria, as well as in South Africa.

Latin Americans express a range of opinions. Most Colombians rate the U.S. positively, while views are more divided in Peru, Brazil and Argentina. Around half or more Mexicans and Chileans have an unfavorable opinion.

Favorable views have declined significantly in 15 of 24 nations where trends from last year are available. Mexico is the only country where views improved, from 29% to 40% favorable.

In many of the countries we have surveyed since 2002 – including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea and the U.K. – positive ratings are at or near the lowest they’ve been.

And although overall ratings for the U.S. are positive in Israel and Nigeria, they are at historic lows in our polling among some subgroups in both countries. Only 19% of Arab Israelis express a favorable view of the U.S., down from 29% last year and the lowest share we’ve measured in any of our Israel surveys. In contrast, 96% of Jewish Israelis have a favorable opinion of the U.S.

Similarly, a record-low 36% of Nigerian Muslims rate the U.S. favorably, down drastically from 73% last year. Roughly eight-in-ten Nigerian Christians (82%) express a favorable view.

Does the U.S. contribute to peace and stability?

A median of 35% of adults across the 36 nations polled think the U.S. contributes a great deal or a fair amount to peace and stability around the world.

However, opinions vary widely. Around seven-in-ten or more in the Philippines (77%), Kenya (74%) and Israel (73%) say the U.S. contributes to global stability, while one-in-five or fewer share this view in Argentina (20%), the Netherlands (19%), the West Bank and East Jerusalem (14%) and Turkey (10%).

People have become much less likely to believe the U.S. adds to global peace and security since we last asked this question in 2023, during the Biden administration. This share of the public has shrunk in 19 of 22 countries where trend data is available. In Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, Canada and Australia, it’s fallen by 30 points or more.

Does the U.S. consider other countries’ interests?

Across the 36 nations polled, a median of 32% of adults think the U.S. takes into account the interests of countries like theirs a great deal or a fair amount in its foreign policy decisions.

Majorities hold this view in the Philippines (74%), Kenya (68%), Israel (68%), Nigeria (64%) and Sri Lanka (62%).

Few in the NATO member states surveyed say the U.S. considers their interests. Hungarians (35%) are the most likely of these allies to say it takes other nations’ interests into account, followed by the U.K. (26%). Only 10% in France and 8% in Sweden express this opinion.

This view has become less common in 19 of 22 countries where trend data from 2023 is available.

In many nations where we have been asking this question over many years, the share of the public who think the U.S. considers other countries’ interests is at or near an all-time low, while the share who say it does not is at or near an all-time high. This is the case in Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, South Africa and the U.K.

Polling

Don't get cocky

Get together

Get to work

Get shit done

Karl Rove Warns ‘Dangerously’ Unpopular Trump Is Tanking the GOP’s Midterm Chances

Legendary GOP operative Karl Rove warned that President Donald Trump may tank Republicans’ chances in November’s midterm elections in a scathing new column for The Wall Street Journal.

Under the headline, “Gerrymandering Isn’t Enough for the GOP,” Rove noted that redistricting efforts don’t put the GOP majority in safe territory,” as “Democrats lead on the generic congressional ballot by 6.6 points in Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin average of recent polls and by 11 in the latest New York Times/Siena survey.”

And Rove thinks he knows who’s responsible for the widening gap.

“The GOP’s chances will get worse if President Trump’s approval numbers keep declining. They’re already dangerously low. Wednesday, his approval hit 39.8% in the RealClearPolitics average, the lowest of his second term so far,” he wrote before observing that the administration’s “message discipline on the Iran war” has been lacking.

“Making things worse are Mr. Trump’s erratic late-night missives. The president comes across more as a heckler at a UFC match than as a reassuring wartime commander in chief,” he added.

“Mr. Trump is also mucking up his domestic messaging. He quickly swamped the good with bad,” continued Rove. “His announcement Monday that he was reducing healthcare costs by adding 600 generic drugs to the government’s on-line low-cost drugstore was a winner. But long after the memory of that announcement fades, voters will recall Tuesday’s news conference at the White House ballroom construction site. The president’s promoting his $1 billion request for White House ‘security measures’ won’t convert voters. Nor will bragging that ‘there will never be another building like this,’ especially with Americans upset about $5-a-gallon gasoline, which Mr. Trump dismissed as ‘peanuts.'”

The Fox News contributor went on to urge Trump to continue fundraising for candidates, but refrain from hitting the campaign trail himself to “let Republican candidates create distance from the president.”

“Let them disagree with his $1 billion ballroom and $1.8 billion slush fund that critics are concerned could go to Jan. 6 felons,” he urged.

“The more undisciplined the White House messages on war and the economy, the more at risk GOP candidates will be. The more Mr. Trump thrusts himself into the campaign, the more damage he’ll do to Republicans and his own cause,” concluded Rove. “Gerrymandering helped Republicans. But the president’s actions are helping Democrats. That could give Democrats the House.”

Trump's Polling Numbers

Trump’s Approval Sinks Amid Unpopular War, Darkening G.O.P. Prospects

With the midterms nearing, President Trump’s approval rating has hit a second-term low as voters question his handling of the economy, according to the latest New York Times/Siena poll.

Most voters think President Trump made the wrong decision to go to war with Iran, a New York Times/Siena poll found, leaving the Republican Party on rocky political footing heading into the midterm elections as his approval rating sinks and economic concerns rise.

Majorities of voters said that the war was not worth the costs and held deeply pessimistic views about the economy.

Mr. Trump’s approval rating — a key historical predictor of how a president’s party will fare in an election — has sunk to a second-term low in Times/Siena polls of 37 percent amid the deeply unpopular Middle East conflict.

Nearly two-thirds of voters said that going to war had been the wrong decision, including almost three-quarters of politically crucial independents. Less than a quarter of all voters thought the conflict had been worth the costs.

Republicans broadly approved of Mr. Trump’s job performance and the war. But most other voters showed serious skepticism of his leadership on other top issues, including the economy and the cost of living. Sixty-four percent of all voters disapproved of his handling of the economy, long a strength for him, and majorities expressed negative views of how he was managing the cost of living, immigration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Independent voters in particular have become unhappier with Mr. Trump. Sixty-nine percent disapproved of his job performance, up from 62 percent in a January Times/Siena poll. Forty-seven percent of independents said his policies had hurt them, up from 41 percent in fall 2025.

Overall, 44 percent of voters said Mr. Trump’s policies had hurt them personally, up from 36 percent last fall.

“He’s not doing what he said he was going to do,” said Brent Klein Jr., a Republican who voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 and 2024. “That’s my biggest frustration with him.”

Mr. Klein, 43, the owner of a cleaning company who lives in Branson, Mo., described himself as “very pissed off” with the president’s decision to attack Iran without seeking congressional approval.

“I just want my family to live a good, healthy life,” he added, and to not have to “constantly pay more and more and more for food products and stuff.”

Republican leaders still have some electoral advantages. The party has gained a structural edge on the House map through its push to redraw congressional maps in red states, netting the G.O.P. an edge of roughly six to 10 newly favorable districts.

And while the political environment has worsened for the president and his party, Democrats have yet to convince voters that they offer a compelling alternative. The poll indicated that Democrats have not improved their political brand, even after more than a year of trying to demonstrate that they understand the concerns of voters and can stand up to Mr. Trump.

Just 26 percent of voters said they were satisfied with the Democratic Party.

The discontent includes a significant number of Democrats who expressed reservations about their own party. Forty-four percent of Democrats described themselves as unsatisfied, while just 23 percent of Republicans said the same about their party.

“They’re just not fighting back hard enough in my eyes,” said Matthew Berryhill, 35, a recruiter from Marietta, Ga., a pivotal battleground area in the state’s key Senate race this year, who described himself as a progressive Democrat. “They come out with strong statements and strong words, and no action to back it up.”

Still, as both parties mobilize for expensive and bitter midterm contests, the survey suggests that Republican candidates are entering their general-election races with stark political liabilities.

In a hypothetical question about this year’s midterm elections, Democrats held an advantage of 10 percentage points among registered voters, with 50 percent saying they would back the party’s candidate if the elections were held today and 39 percent saying they would support the Republican. The Democratic edge among independent voters was 18 points, though 16 percent declined to choose a preferred party.

Even as many Americans have yet to fully tune into the midterms, early signs point to greater enthusiasm among Democratic voters. Democrats were eight points more likely to say they were “almost certain” they would vote.

As peace talks with Iran stall and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to raise energy prices, there is little public appetite for Mr. Trump to resume military operations against the country. A majority of voters, 52 percent, said he should not do so if a deal could not be reached soon to end Iran’s nuclear program.

And as lawmakers on Capitol Hill debate congressional war powers, 63 percent of voters — including 27 percent of Republicans — said the president should not be able to use military force without congressional approval.

Still, large majorities of the president’s core supporters support the war with Iran and want it to continue. Seventy percent of Republicans thought that military operations should resume if a deal were not reached, and 73 percent expected the war to successfully eliminate Iran’s nuclear program.

“I think nipping it in the bud before they can get a nuclear weapon is in our best interest,” said Amanda Mann, 44, an in-home nurse in Myrtle Creek, Ore. “They’re constantly shouting ‘death to America.’ So why not protect us before they can get us?”

Views of the economy have darkened since Mr. Trump began to bomb Iran in late February. Since the start of the war, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline has surged to more than $4.50 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. In recent weeks, several economic indicators, including consumer confidence, prices and household debt, have worsened.

The survey results reflect a growing sense of financial anxiety across the country. The share of voters who rate the economy as “poor” has risen by 11 percentage points since January, up to nearly half of all voters giving the worst rating for the economy. Even Republicans were evenly split, with roughly half saying the economy was only fair or poor.

The share of voters saying the country was on the right track fell by five points, from 37 percent in January to 32 percent in the latest poll. The decline was driven largely by a drop of 12 points among Republicans.

Approval of the president on economic issues has also notably declined from the beginning of the year.

Only 28 percent of voters in the poll believed he had handled the issue of the cost of living well, a drop of six points from January.

Among Republicans, there was a drop of 14 points since January.

“In the beginning, the economy was doing great, and he was doing what he was supposed to do” said Francine Alfano, 56, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2024. “Once we went into war, everything changed.”

Ms. Alfano, who owns a food truck in Vineland, N.J., said higher costs for gas and food had hurt her business.

“It’s terrible,” she said. “Everything’s terrible. It’s totally affected me.”

In recent days, Mr. Trump has brushed off such economic concerns. As the poll was being conducted last week, he told reporters that the financial situation of Americans did not motivate him — “even a little bit” — to end the war with Iran.

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” he added. “I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”

Mr. Trump’s most favorable issue remains immigration, where his approval rating has largely held steady at 41 percent.

“Basically the only thing I can say that he’s doing right is to crack down on the illegal immigration,” said Ronald Marsh, 66, a retired professor of computer science in Grand Forks, N.D., who voted for Mr. Trump three times. “But pretty much everything else at this point is questionable.”

Polling

I've contended for a pretty long time that "there's something wrong with the polling".

And I think polling has become less and less reliable over the years I've spent bitchin' about it.

And that makes some sense in the context of my nagging belief that we're heading into a corporate style plutocracy, so why would rich and powerful people not try to skew opinion by fucking with the polling? But that's an unhinged rant for another time.

An opinion poll is a snapshot of a moment in time. But it's a lagging indicator, which makes it a snapshot of a circumstance that's probably already changed. In a media environment that's been engineered to move quickly and break things, that moment is old news before the polling even starts.

1. Somebody says or does something
2. A pollster is put to work
3. The questions are formulated
4. The calls are made
5. Data is compiled and processed and analyzed
6. Media reports it out

All of that takes a fair amount of time - at least several days, if not weeks - and by the time it gets out to the general public, we're being apprised of information that could be a month or more out-of-date.

From the time Trump says or does something stupid, to the time we get word on how that plays with regular Americans, Trump will have said or done another hundred stupid things.

Flood The Zone works, and we're seeing it every day.

Popularity

Poll: Confidence in the Supreme Court drops to a record low

The latest NBC News poll shows that the percentage of voters with a "great deal" or "quite a bit" of confidence in the court is at the lowest ebb since the question was first asked in 2000.

The percentage of voters with significant levels of confidence in the Supreme Court has dropped to its lowest point since NBC News began polling on the question in 2000, according to the most recent survey.

The latest NBC News poll shows that 22% of registered voters nationally said they have a "great deal" or "quite a bit" of confidence in the high court. Another 40% said they had "some" confidence, while 38% said they had "very little" or "no" confidence.

The previous low point for voters' impressions of the Supreme Court came in the wake of the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, when 27% said they had a great deal or quite a bit of confidence. That number hit a high of 52% in December 2000, just before the court’s Bush v. Gore ruling that paved the way for George W. Bush to take office, a polarizing decision that buffeted the court’s popularity.

Although Republicans generally have higher confidence in the court than Democrats do, there has been a drop among both constituencies over time, according to NBC News polling data. The court currently has a 6-3 conservative majority that often favors Republican causes on issues such as abortion and voting rights.

In the latest survey, 9% of Democrats said they had a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in the court, compared with 35% of Republicans who do.

"It’s one thing to make controversial rulings that one party may or may not like but maintain respect and confidence. What we are seeing is quite the opposite, where the court is making controversial rulings but not being respected and in fact confidence is being eroded," said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey alongside Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

In an NBC News poll that was conducted after the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that President Donald Trump had broad criminal immunity in a case arising from his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, 55% of Republicans said they had a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in the court, while 4% of Democrats had a similar sentiment.

Democratic confidence in the court took another big hit in 2022 when the conservative majority overturned federal abortion rights. At that point, 11% had a significant amount of confidence in the court.

The new NBC News poll, which was in the field Feb. 27-March 3, follows the Supreme Court's most recent high-profile ruling, in which it struck down Trump's sweeping tariffs, bucking a recent trend of significant decisions in favor of the president and other conservative causes. Trump responded with harsh criticism of the justices in the majority.

Republicans had previously chided liberals for stridently criticizing the court when they disagreed with its rulings, including the abortion decision.

"At this stage ... they are getting it from both sides," Horwitt said of the justices.

Maya Sen, a political scientist at the Harvard Kennedy School, said the polling reflects how high-profile rulings tend to shape public opinion of the court, although it would take more than the tariffs decision alone to lead to a significant change in attitudes.

If the court hands other big losses to Trump, including on his plan to end automatic birthright citizenship that is currently before the justices, sentiments among both Democrats and Republicans could change, she added.

“If there are series of unfavorable rulings for the administration ... I think what you’d expect to see is support among Democrats start to thaw a little bit and you’d expect to see some reaction from Republicans,” Sen said.

A majority (54%) of voters surveyed said they approved of the Supreme Court's tariffs ruling, while 27% disapproved. And 55% said Trump's tariffs are hurting the economy, compared with 33% who said they are helping.

Supreme Court justices are appointed for life and generally do not have to worry too much about how popular they are, but a sustained drop in confidence brings its own problems. The court has no power to enforce its rulings and relies upon faith in its legitimacy among political leaders and the people as a whole for that to happen.

“When courts become extensions of the political process, when people see them as extensions of the political process, when people see them as just trying to impose personal preferences on society, irrespective of the law, that’s when there’s a problem,” liberal Justice Elena Kagan said in 2022.

The same year, conservative Chief Justice John Roberts said it is common for people to disagree with rulings, but he added: “Simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court.”

Dippin' Down

Cost of living fuelling Democrat strength in new midterms polling

Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election victory was in no small part down to his perceived economic competence and voters’ dissatisfaction with Joe Biden’s handling of inflation. Trump won a commanding 81% of the vote among the one-third of voters who said the economy was the most important issue facing the country.

Across the world, the cost of living continues to punish incumbent governments. Electorates of the 2020s have high expectations, and governments elected on promises of change that fail to deliver rapid economic improvement face swift electoral retribution. Our polling indicates the Democrats are on course to take back the House of Representatives in November’s midterms, with economic concerns about to punish the incumbent once again.

We have conducted two midterms polls so far this year, one in late January and one earlier this week. The most recent survey gives the Democrats a 5-point lead in the generic House ballot among registered voters, rising to 7 points when our likely-voter turnout model is applied. Our turnout model is trained on validated voter panels and converts self-reported likelihood to vote to actual behaviour (those who say they will ‘probably’ vote only actually turn out about a third of the time!)

In the two-party choice – when voters are forced to choose between the two major parties – the Democrats lead by 53% to 47% with likely voters. The Democrats currently have the enthusiasm advantage, driven mainly by turnout differentials among softer supporters.

Inflation drives voter sentiment

Donald Trump’s overall net approval sits at -18 percentage points (34% approve, 53% disapprove). Our January poll also tracked approval by issue, and found that the president’s net score was almost 10 points lower for both inflation/prices and the economy in general than it was overall.

Breaking the numbers down by voters’ self-described financial positions, we find Trump’s approval rating is sharply correlated with their financial situation. The president is closest to net-zero approval with those ‘living comfortably’ (-7 points), falling to -22 with those ‘just getting by’ and -35 with respondents who say they are ‘finding it very difficult’.

This is not simply a thermostatic shift in Democratic voters self-reporting financial struggle when a Republican president is in office – the pattern holds with Trump’s own voters.

Just 5% of those who voted for Trump in 2024 and are financially comfortable disapprove of his performance, but this rises to around one in five among his voters finding things difficult.

These same voters who punished the Democrats’ handling of the economy to give Trump a second term are now turning their backs on the president.

Statistical modelling shows that concern about the cost of living is by far the biggest factor propelling the Democrats towards a midterm victory in November.

We gave voters an open text question to describe the most important issues facing the country, and used text categorisation tools to group their views. Even after controlling for party identification, 2024 presidential vote and 2020 presidential vote, we find that both ‘economy and jobs’ and ‘inflation and cost of living’ are statistically-significant factors depressing the president’s approval rating, with respondents who mention these issues more likely than average to grade his performance poorly.

The voters in our survey who currently say inflation is one of the country’s biggest issues voted for Trump over Kamala Harris by a 12-point margin in 2024. As of today, the Republicans hold just a 4-point lead in the House generic ballot with these voters – an above-average 8-point shift in under 18 months.

Looking at specific economic concerns, the Democrats have gained most with voters who say they are ‘very concerned’ about unemployment (10-point shift), the price of food and consumer goods (10-point shift) and the price of gasoline and energy (11-point shift).

Our modelling also indicates that the economy and cost of living are directly responsible for a 2.3-point shift towards the Democrats since 2024. Put another way, if the Republicans had maintained Trump’s 2024 lead with economy-concerned voters, the Democratic lead in the House ballot would be two points lower. The combined impact of inflation and economic concerns is more than twice the size of any other issue, accounting for around 2.5 million votes in the Democratic direction.

2028 outlook

We have also taken a very early look ahead at the 2028 presidential primary race. Respondents decided which party’s primary they would vote in and then gave us their top five choices in each race, from which we have imputed a run-off estimate for both major parties. The party primaries are not conducted using an explicit preferential system, but we believe having an overview in this way is more sensible than a hypothetical ballot of 15 candidates, when we know most would no longer be in the race when most voters cast their ballots. A run-off scenario model can show the kinds of candidates who can win over supporters from other campaigns.

Despite her 2024 loss, Kamala Harris leads the early race with 39% from a 10-candidate prompt in the Democratic primary, before beating Gavin Newsom 56-44% in a head-to-head. Pete Buttigieg finishes third, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez places fourth.

In a race without Harris, AOC would pip Buttigieg and Josh Shapiro to the post to reach the final two, before losing 65-35 to Newsom.

On the Republican side, JD Vance currently faces very little opposition, winning a majority of the vote in a six-person ballot, and beating every other candidate handily. Our poll finds that Vance would beat Donald Trump Jr 78-22% in a head-to-head.

Throughout 2026, we will be tracking voter sentiment towards the potential 2028 candidates and testing video content to assess which candidates have the greatest potential, beyond the name-recognition dynamics which tend to drive early presidential primary polling. We will also be tracking the House of Representatives and Senate races, including monthly MRP projections and new interactive dashboards.

Today's Rich

And BTW, Trump is now 8,760 hours behind schedule on his project of Ending The War In Ukraine In 24 Hours.

90%

You can't get 90% of Americans to agree on whether it's light or dark outside at noon on a sunny day.

When a respected, reputable polling outfit posts results showing just 9% of us don't want the Epstein Files released, that should be a pretty good hint for the Congress Critters that they need to get up off their asses and do their fuckin' job.

Most Americans want the Epstein files released, poll finds

About three-quarters of Americans support the release of all files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case, a new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll finds.

Another 13% want some of the Epstein files released, while only 9% don’t want any documents released.

President Donald Trump’s administration has faced growing bipartisan pressure to release the government’s files on Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while in jail awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

- more -

Federal Takeovers Suck

10th Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

We asked 604 D.C. residents about Trump’s takeover. Here’s what they said.

Though crime continues to be a concern, most residents strongly oppose Trump’s actions and don’t think they’ll make D.C. safer, a Washington Post-Schar School poll found.

Washington, D.C., residents overwhelmingly oppose President Donald Trump’s decision last week to take over the D.C. police and order federal law enforcement and the National Guard onto District streets, and 65 percent don’t think his actions will make the city safer from violent crime, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll.

Thirty-one percent of District residents say crime is an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in the city, down from 50 percent in May and 65 percent in spring 2024. While the latest poll finds strong opposition to several tactics Trump has employed, residents show some agreement on one view: Just under half think increasing punishments for convicted teenagers would reduce violent crime.

The vast majority of residents, though, don’t want Trump controlling law enforcement efforts in the city. About 8 in 10 D.C. residents oppose Trump’s executive order to federalize law enforcement in the city, with about 7 in 10 opposing it “strongly.”

Residents of the District, where Trump won just 6 percent of the vote in the 2024 election, disagree with the president’s many characterizations of the city as overrun by crime. On Monday, Trump said Washington had been “the most unsafe place anywhere,” but 78 percent of residents say they feel very or somewhat safe in their neighborhoods. This is similar to 76 percent in May, but the percentage who feel “very safe” is up from 26 percent then to 39 percent now.

“Trump’s overheated rhetoric about D.C. crime has evoked strong feelings among many residents offended by such characterizations of their city,” said Mark Rozell, dean of George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, which co-sponsored the poll.

“A federalized takeover of any aspect of a city’s operations will naturally create a backlash, and that is clearly happening here,” he said. “Residents are saying it is not as bad as the president claims, and they want to reclaim the image of their city against a presidential narrative that is tarnishing D.C.’s reputation.”

The poll of 604 D.C. residents was conducted over four days starting Thursday, in a week that began with Trump signing an executive order declaring an emergency for the District of Columbia citing “out of control” crime.

But in response to an open-ended question about what they see as the biggest problem facing the District, residents are about as likely to say Trump as they are to answer crime. Twenty-four percent name Trump, his takeover of D.C. police or federal overreach as the biggest problem facing the city (double the percentage who named the president or a related issue in May), while 22 percent cite crime as the city’s top problem (compared to 21 percent in May).

Trump’s actions also appear to have spurred support for statehood among residents, with 72 percent saying the District should become a state — more than in any of the dozen polls since 1993 when The Post first asked that question. Relatedly, 55 percent say it’s “extremely important” for the District to govern itself without oversight from the federal government.

Joseph Clay, 89, a Navy veteran who has lived in his Northeast Washington home since 1966, says he strongly opposes the president’s takeover of law enforcement in the District. “We’re becoming a police state. I’m afraid of that, I really am,” Clay, who is Black, said in an interview Tuesday. “I wonder if they’re looking at Blacks and Browns and if I myself could be stopped and asked for my credentials.”

Clay described his neighborhood as excellent and said he hasn’t been a victim of crime since the early 1990s. “The only crime I hear about is what I read in The Washington Post,” he said.

Nearly 9 in 10 Washingtonians say their neighborhood is an excellent or good place to live, including 46 percent who say it’s “excellent.” Those numbers have risen consistently across seven Post polls since 1988, when 56 percent rated their neighborhood positively, including 18 percent who called it excellent.

Residents’ responses in this month’s poll are at odds with the picture painted by Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro of a dirty and lawless city overrun by thugs and drugs. D.C. residents say they are concerned about crime, but they believe the situation is improving.

Fifty-four percent say D.C.’s crime problems are getting better, up from 29 percent who said this in May. Compared with last year, significantly fewer D.C. residents say now that they worry about being a victim of carjacking, theft, home burglary or assault.

Violent crime in D.C. has been declining since 2023, part of a nationwide drop over the past two years that in 2024 brought homicide rates to their lowest level in decades.

For Courtney Priebe, who is White and has lived in Northwest Washington for three years, Trump’s decision to take over law enforcement in the District has made her more fearful, not less. It “is honestly striking more fear into residents than making them feel safe,” said Priebe, 29. “It feels like a show of force to distract from other things.”

Over half of D.C. residents (55 percent) say they’ve noticed more federal law enforcement officers in D.C. since Trump issued his order. Among those who have noticed more federal agents, 61 percent say this made them feel “less safe,” while 18 percent feel safer and 20 percent say it hasn’t made a difference.

Specific steps taken by the administration are also unpopular with people living in the city. About 7 in 10 residents say D.C. police should not help with federal deportation efforts.

Also, more than 6 in 10 Washingtonians oppose the city shutting down homeless tent encampments and requiring people to move elsewhere (64 percent), while 25 percent support this. Opposition is up from May, when 55 percent of D.C. residents opposed it and 33 percent were in support.

Christopher Brosman, 45, who works for the federal government and has lived in Northwest Washington for six years, says he doesn’t want D.C. police assisting in deportation efforts and called the administration’s removal of homeless encampments “the wrong approach to fixing the problem.” He also opposes the federal takeover of D.C. police. “I feel like it’s against American principles and D.C. self rule,” said Brosman, who is White.

Overall, about two-thirds of D.C. residents (65 percent) say Trump’s recent actions will not help combat violent crime. There are some steps that they believe could help, though.

Majorities of District residents think crime would drop in response to increasing economic opportunities in poor neighborhoods (77 percent), stricter national gun laws (70 percent), increasing the number of D.C. police officers on patrol (63 percent) and violence interruption strategies (57 percent). Almost half (47 percent) think the same about increasing punishments for teenagers convicted of crimes.

The poll finds that about 4 in 10 D.C. residents support treating 14-year-olds accused of assault and carjacking like adults, and nearly 6 in 10 say the same for young murder suspects.

Brenden Clark, who lives with his husband in the NoMa neighborhood near North Capitol Street, says he voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 but he supports the takeover of the police and the National Guard presence. “My day-to-day experience living in D.C. proper over the past three years honestly has been the worst experience of my life,” Clark, who is White, said in an interview.

Clark, 37, said his husband once had to hide when a man in a wheelchair outside their apartment building pointed a gun at someone walking behind him. The couple paid $3,700 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, but Clark says they were both afraid to walk in their neighborhood because “there are lots of gangs and people walking around smashing windows.”

Thirty-five percent of city residents say they, a family member or a close friend have been victims of crime in the past five years. Support for Trump’s actions rises to 34 percent among D.C. residents who know a recent violent crime victim, but 60 percent in that category still oppose his actions. Among those who don’t know a crime victim, just 8 percent support Trump’s actions.

Clark says he doesn’t agree with everything Trump does and “obviously [I] don’t think he’s very presidential,” but he supports the law enforcement push and thinks the president is “making things happen that in my view benefit people like me, younger people who don’t have generational wealth.”

Though he says he has felt safer in the few days since Trump took over law enforcement in the city, he doesn’t think he’ll stay. “I’m actually working on plans with my husband to move back to Oklahoma, where I’m from,” he said.

Support for D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) is unchanged since May. A small majority (53 percent) of Washingtonians approve of how Bowser is handling her job, while 41 percent disapprove. About half of Washingtonians say she should do more to oppose Trump (48 percent), 3 in 10 say she’s “handling this about right” (30 percent) and 12 percent say she should do more to support Trump, a figure that is up from 5 percent in May.

D.C. police maintain similar approval ratings: 54 percent of residents say they’re doing an excellent or good job, while 39 percent rate them “not so good” or “poor.” Those ratings are nearly identical to 2024, but down from 74 percent positive in 2017.

“I find that the city is a peace-loving city,” says Michelle Jones, 70, a lifelong District resident who lives in Southeast Washington. She thinks D.C. police “could do a better job and be more proactive in areas where there is high crime.” But Jones, who is Black, strongly opposes the president taking control of the police and ordering National Guard troops into the city.

“He has shown he is an authoritarian and he has demonstrated this is an authoritarian regime across the country,” Jones said. “To make these grandiose statements that the city is filthy and filled with gangs, I don’t understand it.”

The poll was conducted by The Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University by telephone Aug. 14-17, among a random sample of 604 adult residents in Washington, D.C., with 70 percent interviewed by live callers, including 51 percent on cellphones and 19 percent on landlines; 30 percent completed the survey online via a cellphone text invitation. Results have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Sampling, field work and data processing is by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey.

Rachel

Polling

And then this from Rasmussen:

Tell me you're totally in the tank without tell me

Building The Permission Structure

• 70% of us prefer diversity in religion and ethnicity
• 80% of us say the "melting pot" is a good thing (including 73% of Republicans)

MAGA is not the majority.

20 Points Down

When asking the generic "US adults", Trump is 20 points underwater on the question of "Focused on the right priorities".

Only about half of Republicans say Trump has focused on the right priorities, AP-NORC poll finds

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans do not agree with President Trump’s aggressive efforts to quickly enact his agenda, a new poll finds, and even Republicans are not overwhelmingly convinced that his attention has been in the right place.

Americans are nearly twice as likely to say Trump has been mostly focusing on the wrong priorities as to say he has been focusing on the right ones, according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Further, about 4 in 10 Americans say Trump has been a “terrible” president in his second term, and about 1 in 10 say he has been “poor.” In contrast, about 3 in 10 say he has been “great or ”good,” while just under 2 in 10 say he has been “average.”

Most haven’t been shocked by the drama of Trump’s first 100 days. About 7 in 10 U.S. adults say the first few months of Trump’s second term have been mostly what they expected, and only about 3 in 10 say the Republican president’s actions have been mostly unexpected.

But that does not mean they are pleased with how those opening months have gone.

In fact, Democrats seem even unhappier with the reality of the second Trump term than before he was sworn in on Jan. 20. About three-quarters of Democrats say Trump is focused on the wrong topics and about 7 in 10 think he has been a “terrible” president so far. That is an increase from January, when about 6 in 10 anticipated that he would be “terrible.”

Rahsaan Henderson, a Democrat from California, said “it has been one of the longest 100 days I’ve ever had to sit through.”

“I think the next four years will be a test of seeing who can resist the most and continue defying whatever he’s trying to do, since he defies everything, including the Supreme Court,” said Henderson, 40.

Republicans are largely standing behind the president, but are ambivalent about what he has chosen to emphasize. About 7 in 10 say he has been at least a “good” president. But only about half say he has mostly had the right priorities so far, while about one-quarter say it has been about an even mix and about 1 in 10 said Trump has mostly had the wrong priorities.

“He’s really doing the stuff that he said he was going to do,” said Tanner Bergstrom, 29, a Republican from Minnesota. He is “not making a bunch of promises and getting into office and nothing happens. ... I really like that. Even if it’s some stuff I don’t agree with, it’s still doing what he said he was going to do.”

Those who were surprised by Trump’s first few months seem to have had a rude awakening. The people who say Trump’s actions were not what they expected — who are mostly Democrats and independents — are more likely to say Trump has had mostly the wrong priorities and that he has been a poor or terrible president, compared with the people who mostly expected his actions.

About 4 in 10 in the survey approve of how Trump is handling the presidency overall. The issue of immigration is a relative strength. According to the poll, 46% of U.S. adults approve of his handling of the issue, which is slightly higher than his overall approval. But there are also indications that foreign policy, trade negotiationsand the economy could prove problematic as he aims to prove his approach will benefit the country.

Trump’s approval on those issues is much lower than it is on immigration. Only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of how he is handling each. Republicans are less likely to approve of Trump’s approach to trade and the economy than immigration.

There are additional signals that some Trump supporters may not be thrilled with his performance so far. The share of Republicans who say he has been at least a “good” president has fallen about 10 percentage points since January. They also have grown a bit more likely to say Trump will be either “poor” or “terrible,” although only 16% describe his first few months that way.

Republican Stephanie Melnyk, 45, from Tennessee, is supportive of Trump’s handling of the presidency more broadly but said she did not approve of his handling of foreign affairs, particularly on the war in Ukraine. Melnyk’s family emigrated from Ukraine and she said Trump is “trying for a quick fix that’s not going to last” and that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is not to be trusted.”

Melnyk, who voted for Trump largely for his positions on immigration, said she wished the president would stay on script.

“He sounds like he can be very condescending, and it sounds like my way or the highway,” Melnyk said. “It’s like, dude. You’re not 12.”

It’s common, though, for a president’s standing to be at its best before taking office and beginning the work of governing. And Trump continues to hold high approval from Republicans.

About 4 in 10 Americans have a favorable opinion of Trump, roughly in line with his approval number. Among Republicans, the figure is about double: About 8 in 10 Republicans have a positive view of the president, and about the same share approves of how he is handling the presidency. About one-third of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of Vice President JD Vance, including about 7 in 10 Republicans.

Those Republicans interviewed were particularly fond of efforts to scale back the size of the federal government led by billionaire outside adviser Elon Musk and Trump’s cost-cutting initiative, the Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.

“Overall, I would have to say that I’m happy with the Trump presidency,” said Matthew Spencer, 30, a Republican from Texas. “I think that the Department of Government Efficiency has made great strides in reducing our spending, and I also agree with putting America first. I agree with the policies he’s put in as far as border protection and America standing for itself again as far as the tariffs.”

“We’re only three months in, but so far, so good,” said Carlos Guevara, 46, who lives in Florida. Guevara, a Republican, said DOGE has been a “smash hit” and on tariffs, and while there may be short-term pain, “if that does encourage businesses to start manufacturing here ... then that’ll wash out over time.”

Democrats have a much bleaker outlook on the economy than they held before Trump took office. The poll also found that the vast majority of Democrats think he has “gone too far” on deportations and tariffs.

Gabriel Antonucci, 26, a Democrat who recently moved to South Carolina, said Trump’s second term is “just a lot more ridiculous” than he had anticipated.

“It really seems like he is doing everything he can to make the wrong decisions,” Antonucci said. “Things are probably going to be worse in four years than they are right now.”

The AP-NORC poll of 1,260 adults was conducted April 17-21, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

But Don't Let Up

For just another 23 days, it's gotta be all gas and no brakes.

Don't forget: A big part of Trump's plan is to set the expectation that he's ahead - so when Harris wins (if she wins - fuck me, she's gotta win), he can kick it up a few notches and hit the usual bullshit about "It was rigged! They cheated! The brown people knifed us in the back!"

Harris vs. Trump analyst tells panicky Dems: GOP is creating fake polls

‘Desperate, unhinged, Trumpian’

As polls seem to indicate that former president Donald Trump has momentum in some swing states with 24 days remaining until the Nov. 5 presidential election, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg says: Don’t buy it.


About a month ago, Rosenberg predicted that a slew of polls by Republican organizations would flood the zone, showing Trump leading — and, like clockwork, it has happened.

The purpose is two-fold, Rosenberg said: To excite Trump’s base and discourage Vice President Kamala Harris’ supporters, while also providing Trump with ammunition to say the election was rigged if he loses.

In a tweet thread, Rosenberg explained:

“Of last 15 general election polls released in PA, 12 have right/GOP affiliations. Their campaign to game the polling averages and make it appear like Trump is winning — when he isn’t — escalated in last few days.

“I urge journalists and researchers to dive into FiveThirtyEight and see how the red wave pollsters have flooded the zone again. MT, PA, NC were initial targets but now it’s all 7 battleground states.

“This 2024 red wave op is much larger and involves many more actors and polls than the red wave campaign in 2022. It also involves new players — Polymarket, Elon — and feels far more desperate, frenetic, unhinged. Trumpian.”

Rosenberg pointed to a New York Times autopsy on the 2022 midterm elections: “The ‘Red Wave’ Washout: How Skewed Polls Fed a False Election Narrative.”

Rosenberg also referred to a recent New York Times report — “Elon Musk is going all-in to elect Trump” — that shows coordination between Twitter/X owner Elon Musk and the Trump campaign.

Musk shut down a Twitter/X account that published hacked materials from the Trump campaign. And according to the New York Times, Musk and his team have set up a war room in Pittsburgh to strategize with a team of lawyers and public-relations professionals to help Trump win.

On Thursday, American Muckrakers posted about emails it received detailing how the conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports, which claims to be nonpartisan, shared polling results with Trump advisers and campaign officials like Dan Scavino, Susie Wiles, and John McLaughlin.

“More than 25 organizations are now involved in red wave 2024,” Rosenberg tweeted. “Last week, they dropped 27 polls. This week it’s more. Ferocity of effort to make it look like Trump is winning clearly means they don’t think he is.”