Donât Just Look At Trumpâs Approval Rating To Judge His First 100 Days
With  President Trumpâs  100th day in office approaching  analysts and pundits are taking stock of  his  performance. How âs   he  doing? The simplest  most common way to answer that question is to look at  Trumpâs  approval rating (itâs low  but the bottom hasnât fallen out). And thatâs a perfectly fine measure by which to judge the White House; approval ratings tell us how Americans feel about  Trump   and â eventually â theyâll do a good job at approximating his chances of re-election.
But presidential approval is not a great measure of the more immediate electoral issue: How will the presidentâs party do in the midterm elections? By all means  keep one eye on  Trumpâs  approval rating  but keep the other on the generic congressional ballot â a longstanding poll question that pits a nameless Republican against a nameless Democrat in a race for the House.
Approval ratings have historically jumped all over the place  and even on the eve of the midterms  they do a relatively poor job of forecasting the election results. The generic ballot  in contrast  has tended to be far more telling. And the generic ballot polls conducted since  Trump  became president suggest that House Republicans are on track to suffer a potentially major defeat in the 2018 midterm elections.
Even when Democrats were busy crafting and eventually introducing a fairly unpopular health care bill in the middle of 2009  they still held a 3 percentage point lead on the generic ballot for the 2010 midterm elections. This year  a combination of Trumpâs unpopularity and House Republicansâ inability to pass any major legislation has likely contributed to Americans wanting to put Democrats back in charge.
Of course  itâs far from guaranteed that Democrats would win the House vote by exactly 8 percentage points. Like with a presidentâs approval rating  generic ballot margins tend to undergo a reversion toward the mean  just as the presidentâs partyâs standing tends to decline. The fact that  Trump  is already so unpopular may mean that  he  wonât become more unpopular as the midterm approaches. Therefore  the Democratsâ lead in the generic ballot may not expand further  instead holding steady the way it did in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal. Itâs also possible that some event (e.g. a terrorist attack) interrupts the normal historical trend  and the White House Party gains ground on the generic ballot  as Republicans did after 9/11.
Still  while youâre reading dozens of 100-day analyses this week  leave some room for the generic ballot. Democratsâ 5 percentage point lead is probably one of the worst signs for  Trump  and the GOP. It shows that Trumpâs unpopularity is translating down-ballot and hurting  his party . When you combine the generic ballot numbers with high Democratic enthusiasm  thereâs no sign that  Trumpâs Republican Party  has some unique ability to âdefy midterm gravity.â The GOPâs House majority is in danger.
With  [TGT] 100th day in office approaching  analysts and pundits are taking stock of   [TGT]   performance. How âs    [TGT]   doing? The simplest  most common way to answer that question is to look at  Trumpâs  approval rating (itâs low  but the bottom hasnât fallen out). And thatâs a perfectly fine measure by which to judge the White House; approval ratings tell us how Americans feel about  [TGT] and â eventually â theyâll do a good job at approximating his chances of re-election.
But presidential approval is not a great measure of the more immediate electoral issue: How will the presidentâs party do in the midterm elections? By all means  keep one eye on  Trumpâs  approval rating  but keep the other on the generic congressional ballot â a longstanding poll question that pits a nameless Republican against a nameless Democrat in a race for the House.
Approval ratings have historically jumped all over the place  and even on the eve of the midterms  they do a relatively poor job of forecasting the election results. The generic ballot  in contrast  has tended to be far more telling. And the generic ballot polls conducted since   [TGT] became president suggest that House Republicans are on track to suffer a potentially major defeat in the 2018 midterm elections.
Even when Democrats were busy crafting and eventually introducing a fairly unpopular health care bill in the middle of 2009  they still held a 3 percentage point lead on the generic ballot for the 2010 midterm elections. This year  a combination of Trumpâs unpopularity and House Republicansâ inability to pass any major legislation has likely contributed to Americans wanting to put Democrats back in charge.
Of course  itâs far from guaranteed that Democrats would win the House vote by exactly 8 percentage points. Like with a presidentâs approval rating  generic ballot margins tend to undergo a reversion toward the mean  just as the presidentâs partyâs standing tends to decline. The fact that   [TGT] is already so unpopular may mean that   [TGT]   wonât become more unpopular as the midterm approaches. Therefore  the Democratsâ lead in the generic ballot may not expand further  instead holding steady the way it did in 1974 amid the Watergate scandal. Itâs also possible that some event (e.g. a terrorist attack) interrupts the normal historical trend  and the White House Party gains ground on the generic ballot  as Republicans did after 9/11.
Still  while youâre reading dozens of 100-day analyses this week  leave some room for the generic ballot. Democratsâ 5 percentage point lead is probably one of the worst signs for  Trump  and the GOP. It shows that Trumpâs unpopularity is translating down-ballot and hurting  his party . When you combine the generic ballot numbers with high Democratic enthusiasm  thereâs no sign that  Trumpâs Republican Party  has some unique ability to âdefy midterm gravity.â The GOPâs House majority is in danger.