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The completion of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was widely portrayed as a turning point in Trump’s presidency. But so far it’s had little effect on his approval rating.
As of Monday night, Trump’s approval rating was 42.1 percent and his disapproval rating was 52.8 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s approval rating tracker, which is based on data all publicly-available polls. Those numbers are little changed from where they were – 41.9 percent approval and 52.9 percent disapproval – on Saturday, March 23, the day before Attorney General William Barr issued a four-page letter on the Mueller report to Congress. (The Mueller report itself has not yet been released to the public or to Congress, although Barr has pledged to release a redacted version of it by mid-April.)
Trump’s approval rating is little changed since the Barr letter
Trump’s approval rating is little changed since the Barr letter
Trump approval and disapproval ratings in FiveThirtyEight polling average
| DATE | EVENT | APPROVE | DISAPPROVE |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 1 | Start of last month | 42.0% | 53.3% |
| March 21 | Day before Mueller report filed to Barr | 41.6 | 53.1 |
| March 23 | Day before Barr letter released | 41.9 | 52.9 |
| April 1 | Current | 42.1 | 52.8 |
While I’d urge a little bit of caution on these numbers – sometimes there’s a lag before a news event is fully reflected in the polls – there’s actually been quite a bit of polling since Barr’s letter came out, including polls from high-quality organizations such as Marist College, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, Quinnipiac University and the Pew Research Center which were conducted wholly or partially after the Barr letter was published. Some of these polls showed slight improvements in Trump’s approval rating, but others showed slight declines. Unless you’re willing to do a lot of cherry-picking, there just isn’t anything to make the case that much has changed.
In writing about the Barr letter just after it came out, I ducked making any sort of prediction about its effect on Trump’s numbers, saying it might or might not approve his approval ratings. Truth be told, if I were forced to put money on one side or another, I’d probably have expected them to improve by more than a few tenths of a percentage point.
With the benefit of hindsight, though, maybe this shouldn’t have been any sort of surprise. There are at least six reasons for why you might not have expected to see much of a change in Trump’s numbers. Here they are – note that these aren’t mutually exclusive and aren’t listed in any particular order of importance.
