New RNC poll spun as good news for Trump is actually full of terrible news for Trump

New RNC poll spun as good news for Trump is actually full of terrible news for Trump
His approval rating is one point above water in House districts he won by 12. That’s terrible.
By Matthew Yglesias@mattyglesiasmatt@vox.com Jan 29, 2019, 10:20am EST


While public polling shows President Trump to be in a bleak political situation after a thumping midterm defeat and an unpopular shutdown, Alex Isenstadt of Politico reports that “Trump’s political team has concluded that shutting down the government hasn’t damaged his 2020 prospects — if anything, they’re convinced it’s bolstered his standing in key electoral battlegrounds.”

To support this wild claim, Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, provided Isenstadt with the results of a poll conducted by Neil Newhouse and Robert Blizzard on behalf of the Republican National Committee.

Isenstadt, in turn, was given their full write-up of the poll and posted it online for everyone to see. The weird thing about it is that while it would be pretty easy to fake a poll and stuff it full of good news for Trump, they didn’t. They just took a poll that’s full of bad news for Trump — like that his approval rating is probably 13 points underwater nationally and he’s less popular than Democratic House incumbents who are holding down Trump-voting districts — and wrote it up as if it’s good news for Trump.

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In fact, the only genuinely new finding this poll offers is its look at the popularity of 10 House Democrats who’ve been given the difficult job of trying to hold down seats that are much redder than the national average. And the news here is good for Democrats — the incumbent House members in these districts are popular. None of this is earth-shattering, but it does raise the question of why Trump’s staff seems to be trying to trick him.

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https://www.vox.com/2019/1/29/18201939/rnc-poll-parscale-trump-districts