RUTHFULLY YOURS

Presidents rise or fall based on what voters think of them, at least when it comes to political clout and influence. How is President Donald Trump doing? So far, so good, but there is still room for improvement, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll suggests.

While Trump is in only the fifth month of his second term, Americans feel much more favorable about him right now than than they did about former President Joe Biden in his final month in office, the June I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

In the latest poll, taken from May 28-30, I&I/TIPP once again asked voters: “Overall, is your opinion of Donald Trump generally favorable, generally unfavorable, or are you not familiar enough to say one way or the other?” (The poll of 1,395 adults has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points).

The answer: He splits the electorate pretty much down the middle when it comes to favorability, with 45% awarding him “favorable” marks for his term so far, and an equivalent 45% calling his service so far “unfavorable.” So, on net, Trump is even. Among the rest, 7% said they were “not familiar enough to say,” while another 3% said they were “not sure.”

But that favorability number needs some recent presidential perspective. For instance, in January’s I&I/TIPP Poll, Biden received just 38% favorable and 51% unfavorable, for a net negative of -13%. At the time, we described it as “Biden’s Disaster.“

Trump’s favorability reading edged up in the latest month by a point, while his unfavorability number dipped a point, a two-point swing.

So, to voters, Trump appears to be a material improvement over Biden, despite one of the most aggressive, controversial and eventful starts to any presidency in modern times.

But of course there are always political differences: While Republicans (80% favorable, 14% unfavorable) are ecstatic with Trump’s performance so far, not so much Democrats (19% favorable, 74% unfavorable) and independents (32% favorable, 51% unfavorable). To the latter two groups, Trump’s bold start has been like a bucket of cold water in the face.

A closely related measure, presidential approval and disapproval, shows a similar pattern. I&I/TIPP asked voters, “In general, do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president, or are you not familiar enough to say one way or the other?”

Overall, 43% responded that they approve of how Trump is doing his job, while 45% disapprove. But there once again was deep political division, with Democrats (17% approval, 76% disapproval) and independents and third parties (30% approve, 51% disapprove) offsetting the enthusiastic Republicans (77% approve, 13% disapprove).

Those weren’t the only differences. Men (52% approve, 39% disapprove) and women (34% approve, 51% disapprove) mostly stood on opposite sides of the fence. The same is true for race: White voters (50% approve, 40% disapprove) are more enthused than Hispanic and black voters (29% approve, 56% disapprove).

So while, in general, Trump has done better with minority voters, there is room to do better. And the same is true with women.

What about Trump’s leadership so far? How do Americans view that?

Among all voters, 44% say Trump’s leadership has either been “very strong” (28%) or just “strong” (16%). Another 15% describe his leadership as “moderate.” Meanwhile, 37% call his leadership either “very weak” (28%) or “weak” (9%).

Responses to the leadership question were a bit more nuanced. For instance, while whites (50% strong leadership, 34% weak leadership) and Hispanics (39% strong, 36% weak) mostly see Trump’s leadership as strong, blacks don’t see the leadership the others do: just 26% strong, 38% weak.

And it’s another question where women and men strongly differ. Men (51% strong, 30% weak) are far more likely to see Trump’s leadership as strong than women (37% strong, 44% weak).

The TIPP Presidential Leadership Index measures public sentiment over time by combining three components: favorability, job approval, and presidential leadership. The index ranges from 0 to 100, with readings above 50 indicating optimism and below 50 signaling pessimism. In June, the overall index stood at 50.2, with Republicans most optimistic at 83.8, Democrats least at 21.8, and Independents in between at 39.1.

As for Trump’s performance, based on the share of Americans giving him either “excellent” or “good” grades on 15 separate areas, ranging from the economy and the Israel-Hamas conflict to violence and crime and restoring America’s core values, Trump remains solid.

Overall, Trump receives a 41% grade, thanks mainly to continued strong support among Republicans, 74% of whom give Trump the highest marks, followed by independents and third party members at 34% and by Democrats at 15%.

On individual issues, the proportion giving good grades range from a high of 46% for his “Handling the immigration, border security situation,” to a low of 34% for “Handling of health care” and “Handling of North Korea.” All the rest lay somewhere in between.

The point is, voter assessment of Trump’s performance so far appears steady or even improving, despite a relentless barrage of negative media coverage, which — as the recent book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” shows — was entirely missing from the Biden presidency.

It seems, at least as a matter of fairness to Trump, that his ratings among left-leaning and centrist voters might be higher if not for the relentlessly bad coverage he receives.

That Trump’s media coverage has been negative seems beyond dispute. The Media Research Center, for instance, found that during Trump’s first 100 days in office his coverage was 92% negative.

Biden’s coverage, by comparison, was 59% positive.

Perhaps it’s a matter of reality catching up to the media spin. Case in point: Last week more good economic news emerged on a number of fronts.

For one, even as economists warned of tariff-related price hikes across the country, the Federal Reserve reported that it’s favored inflation measure had fallen to a four-year low of 2.1% year-over-year in April, edging closer to the Fed’s preferred 2% inflation level.

Meanwhile, personal income jumped by 0.8%, its most since May of 2021. after rising 0.5% the month before. Inflation down, incomes up: That’s a very good outcome for Trump, after the media printed dozens of stories predicting a “likely” recession this year.

Is a recession really likely now? The Atlanta Fed’s “GDPNow” measure, which calculates GDP based on current indicators, now anticipates 3.8% GDP growth in the second quarter. That compares to the estimate of just over 1% by 50 leading economists.

There are dangers out there, to be sure, that could damage Trump’s presidential ratings. Iran getting a nuclear weapon, for instance; the Russia-Ukraine war continuing; China attacking its neighbors, in particular Taiwan; failure of the GOP majority to pass Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget, causing a stock and bond market meltdown; the list goes on and on.

While IBD/TIPP is not in the prediction business, it is a fact that Trump has so far gotten little good press, and a lot of bad press. As the I&I/TIPP Poll data suggest, any realization by average Americans that what they read or view in the media doesn’t necessarily reflect reality can only help Trump’s presidential ratings to improve.

I&I/TIPP publishes timely, unique, and informative data each month on topics of public interest. TIPP’s reputation for polling excellence comes from being the most accurate pollster for the past six presidential elections.

Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as national issues editor, economics editor, and editorial page editor for Investor’s Business Daily.