Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogelbamb here. Voting is the ultimate popularity contest in
Speaker 1: the United States. Voters have the opportunity at least every
Speaker 1: two years to cast ballots in federal elections, either filling
Speaker 1: seats in the U. S. House of Representatives, the U. S. Senate,
Speaker 1: or the White House, but operating non stop between those
Speaker 1: elections is a political prognostication machine designed to predict the
Speaker 1: next batch of winners. There are at least a dozen
Speaker 1: major polling organizations who quiz Americans on a daily basis
Speaker 1: about their approval or disapproval of current officials, their opinion
Speaker 1: on the latest hot button political issues, and whether or
Speaker 1: not the nation is on track or off the rails.
Speaker 1: There's a lot at stake in these polls. Political donors
Speaker 1: use them to decide which candidates and political issues to bankroll,
Speaker 1: and savvy congressional representatives consult them to calculate the political
Speaker 1: risk of backing or splitting with the White House on
Speaker 1: its legislative agenda. But the polling number that grabs the
Speaker 1: most headlines is the president's job approval rating. For example,
Speaker 1: back in March, President Donald Trump tweeted about being proud
Speaker 1: of having, according to Rasmusen reports, a job approval rating
Speaker 1: of around even though russ Musen's approval members on that
Speaker 1: particular day were only for The reason the president was
Speaker 1: tweeting in March about his rounded up approval ratings and
Speaker 1: the reason that democratic political pundits rushed to correct him
Speaker 1: is that job approval ratings are about more than just
Speaker 1: stoking or bashing the president's ego. They are perhaps the
Speaker 1: best single predictor of who will win the mid term
Speaker 1: elections in November. Midterm elections happen exactly two years after
Speaker 1: each presidential election and almost always pose a serious challenge
Speaker 1: for the party in the White House. The president's political
Speaker 1: party has lost seats in the House of Representatives and
Speaker 1: all but two midterm elections since World War Two. The
Speaker 1: exceptions were Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in two
Speaker 1: thousand two. What's interesting is that the severity of the
Speaker 1: mid term losses appears to be directly related to the
Speaker 1: popularity of the president. Gallup reported in that when post
Speaker 1: war presidents had approval ratings of fifty percent or above
Speaker 1: at the time of a midterm election, their party only
Speaker 1: lost an average of fourteen seats in the House, but
Speaker 1: if they had an approval rating of forty nine percent
Speaker 1: or lower, the average loss was thirty six seats. Using
Speaker 1: more recent data from nineteen seventy fourteen, Bloomberg put the
Speaker 1: average loss at just thirty three seats for presidents with
Speaker 1: approval ratings under fifty percent. But either way you slice it,
Speaker 1: that's significant. There have been some exceptions, however. Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: had an approval rating of sixty three percent in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six and his party still lost five seats in
Speaker 1: the mid terms. And on the other side of the aisle,
Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy had a sixty one percent approval rating
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two and still lost four seats. The
Speaker 1: connection between presidential job approval and midterm elections is particularly
Speaker 1: strong during the first midterm election after a new president
Speaker 1: takes the White House. Punditcy those first mid terms largely
Speaker 1: as a referendum on the president's job performance. That's why
Speaker 1: Democrats made such a big deal about the March thirteenth
Speaker 1: special election in Pennsylvania, where their candidate won by the
Speaker 1: slimmest of margins in a region that went heavily Republican.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen. They point to it as a sign
Speaker 1: that Trump's poor job performance and low approval ratings will
Speaker 1: lead to a blue wave of Democratic victories later in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. But what about presidential elections. Does it incumbent's
Speaker 1: job approval rating make or break his chances of winning
Speaker 1: re election? The short answer yes. Since World War Two,
Speaker 1: not a single incumbent presidential candidate has won re election
Speaker 1: with a job approval rating below fift Barack Obama almost
Speaker 1: became the exception in twenty twelve, with an approval rating
Speaker 1: in the mid forties a few months before election day,
Speaker 1: though by November it had cleared the hurdle at fifty
Speaker 1: one percent. But does that mean that if Trump's approval
Speaker 1: rating continues to languish below fifty over the next two
Speaker 1: years that he will deafly lose the reelection? In absolutely
Speaker 1: not Many things about the Trump presidency to phi president.
Speaker 1: For example, Trump was elected in ten despite being the
Speaker 1: least liked major party presidential candidate of all time. His
Speaker 1: unfavorability rating on election day was a whopping However, his
Speaker 1: primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, had the second highest unfavorability rating
Speaker 1: in history. At further Complicating matters is that not every
Speaker 1: job approval poll comes up with these same numbers. That's
Speaker 1: because each polling organization uses a slightly different methodology. Some posters,
Speaker 1: like Gallop call up a representative sample of Americans over
Speaker 1: the age of eighteen and simply ask them if they
Speaker 1: approve or disapprove of the president's job performance. In Trump's case,
Speaker 1: those polls result in lower approval and higher disapproval numbers.
Speaker 1: But rasp Musin reports only counts answers from likely voters,
Speaker 1: or people who say that they're likely to vote in
Speaker 1: the next election. Rest Music and is also the only
Speaker 1: company pulling people on a daily basis, and they give
Speaker 1: respondents for options strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, and
Speaker 1: strongly disapprove. In Trump's case, the inclusion of somewhat approved
Speaker 1: seems to be enough to lift his rasp Musin approval
Speaker 1: numbers as many as ten points higher than other major
Speaker 1: national pollsters. Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots
Speaker 1: of other popular topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com.