Trump Gains Ground Among Key Voting Bloc

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RALEIGH, N.C. – In an early release of Civitas’ pre-election statewide poll, President Trump’s job approval rating has improved since September. When respondents were asked what they thought about the job Donald Trump is doing as president, 48 percent stated they approve, while 47 percent disapprove, and 4 percent were unsure or refused.

	10/21/18	9/7/18
Strongly approve	37%	31%
Somewhat approve	11%	14%
Somewhat disapprove	9%	8%
Strongly disapprove	38%	45%
Unsure/Refused	4%	2%
Total Approve	48%	45%
Total Disapprove	47%	53%

“President Trump has said that the 2018 midterm elections are a referendum on him, and that might be true,” said Civitas Institute President Donald Bryson. “However, if this year’s elections are a referendum on the Trump presidency, then numbers are breaking at the right time for Republicans as President Trump’s job approval among Republicans is higher than disapproval among Democrats. More tellingly, unaffiliated voters have shifted from a net disapproval in our August and September polls, to a net approval of nearly 17 percent.”

Likely voters were also asked about their opinion of the president. The results revealed an even split among those surveyed. Three percent were unsure or refused.

Very favorable	36%
Somewhat favorable	10%
Very unfavorable	40%
Somewhat unfavorable	6%
Heard of him, but have no opinion	5%
Never heard of him	0%
Unsure/Refused	3%
Total Favorable	46%
Total Unfavorable	46%

Bryson continued, “To be clear, the President’s favorability and job approval ratings are not a net positive.  However, they aren’t a net negative either, and a nationalized negative referendum on the Trump Presidency is critical to a blue wave on November 6.”

Nationwide public opinion about the president has largely been underwater for most of his presidency. However, according to RealClearPolitics, the favorable/unfavorable gap started closing in February and has remained relatively steady since. Trump carried North Carolina by 3.6 percent in the 2016 election and according to a June publication in FiveThirtyEight his net approval in the state has remained above water, although only slightly.

The sample size for the survey is 500 likely voters in North Carolina and the margin of error is +/- 4.4%. Responses were gathered via landline and mobile telephone interviews conducted by live callers at a professional call center. The survey was conducted October 18-21, 2018 by Harper Polling. The total percentages of responses may not equal 100% due to rounding.