Most Americans think President Donald Trump is “too extreme,” a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds.
A 52 percent majority say that Trump is too extreme, and just 31 percent that he isn’t. But the condemnation of the president hasn’t carried over to his party. If anything, it may have made the rest of the GOP seem moderate in contrast.
Instead, Americans are currently split on the Republican Party, with 36 percent viewing it as too extreme, but 34 percent saying that it isn’t. The percentage who view the party as out of the mainstream is down not only from the 42 percent who said so in April, the 48 percent who said so last spring and the 50 percent who said so two years ago, but even from the 43 percent who said the same just after the GOP’s victory in the 2014 midterms.
While 88 percent of voters who supported Hillary Clinton in last year’s election think Trump is too extreme, a relatively modest two-thirds say the same of the GOP. Non-voters and those who backed a third party are also more likely to describe the president using that term than they are to say the same about the Republican Party as a whole.
Views of the Democratic Party, meanwhile, have remained relatively consistent throughout that time, with the percentage who call it too extreme ranging between 38 and 41 percent.
Other GOP figures are also now viewed as significantly less extreme than Trump. The public is split, 30 percent to 28 percent, on whether or not House Speaker Paul Ryan qualifies for that label, with the rest unsure. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who’s been floated as a potential primary challenger to Trump in 2020, is even less well-known, but is viewed by just 18 percent as too extreme, and by 28 percent as being within bounds.
Use the widget below to further explore the results of the HuffPost/YouGov survey, using the menu at the top to select survey questions and the buttons at the bottom to filter the data by subgroups:
MORE OF THE LATEST POLLING NEWS:
LITTLE SHIFT IN CONCERN OVER RUSSIA - Since March, there have been plenty of developments regarding President Trump’s relationship with Russia during last year’s campaign. But the share of Americans who consider the Trump administration’s Russia ties to be at least a somewhat serious problem remains virtually unchanged from where it stood near the beginning of the year, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, which finds the statistic still hovering at just about 48 percent.
The latest round of developments ― including news that a top executive in Trump’s organization reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman to ask for business help ― has been overshadowed by Harvey. According to the latest poll, just 21 percent of Americans have heard a lot about Russia in the past week. See the full results here.
WHAT THE POLLING AVERAGES SAY AS OF FRIDAY AFTERNOON -
Trump job approval among all Americans: 38% approve, 58% disapprove
Trump job approval among Democrats: 10% approve, 87% disapprove
Trump job approval among Republicans: 78% approve, 18% disapprove
Trump job approval among independents: 35% approve, 57% disapprove
Generic House: 42% Democratic candidate, 35% Republican candidate
Obamacare favorability: 47% favor, 42% oppose
‘OUTLIERS’ - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-The latest round of national polling offers some troubling data points for the president. [Pew Research, GW Battleground, SurveyMonkey, Fox News]
-A third of Americans say they know someone affected by the flooding caused by Harvey. [HuffPost]
-Fewer than half of Trump voters think that most or all Republicans in Congress generally back the president. [HuffPost]
-Emily Swanson provides some historical context for Trump’s struggling approval ratings. [AP]
-Nate Silver proposed seven rules for reading Trump’s ratings. [538]
-Steve Kornacki offers some caveats on Trump’s unpopularity; Damon Linker cautions against discounting the president’s chances at re-election. [NBC, The Week]
-Kyle Kondik looks at the countervailing forces at play in the 2018 Senate midterms. [Sabato’s Crystal Ball]
-Dan Cassino sees Republicans’ votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act as a potential midterm vulnerability. [Newsweek]
-Approval for labor unions is the highest it’s been since 2003. [Gallup]
-Ron Brownstein chats with GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson about her concerns for her party’s future. [Atlantic]
-Most Americans have, apparently, had a “frenemy.” [YouGov]
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The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted Aug. 25-26 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
HuffPost has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion polling. More details on the polls’ methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov’s reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.