Welcome! We have a fresh blog to guide you through all the major news from the United States this weekend. If you’d like to catch up on what happened yesterday, you can find the old blog here.
Let’s start the day in nerdy fashion, with the first major round of polling since the Capitol riot.
The results could be considered surprising, I guess, given how stable Donald Trump’s support has been throughout his presidency. He has spent most of it with an approval rating in the low to mid-40s, and the constant drumbeat of controversies has done little to shift it.
Specifically, according to Pew Research, Mr Trump’s approval rating has never exceeded 45 per cent or fallen below 36 per cent. Until now.
Pews latest survey shows the Presidents approval plummeting to its lowest ever point, 29 per cent, and his disapproval rating spiking to 68 per cent. The previous iteration of the poll, taken in August, had a split of 38-59.
Most of the drop comes from Republican voters, whose approval of Mr Trumps performance has fallen from 77 per cent to 60 per cent.
Pew also asked respondents whether or not they wanted Mr Trump to remain a major political figure. The margin was the same as his approval numbers 29 per cent said yes and 68 per cent said no.
Three-quarters of voters expressed a negative view about the Presidents conduct since the election on November 3, and a 54-45 majority said it would be better for the US if he were removed from office immediately, with Vice President Mike Pence serving out the remaining days until Joe Biden is sworn in.
68% of Americans do not want Trump to remain a major political figure in the future for many years to come; just 29% say he should remain a major figure in U.S. politics. https://t.co/syBb2tidwvpic.twitter.com/BpyNcbI3r0
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) January 15, 2021
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We also have a new ABC/Washington Post poll to digest. It has similar findings. For example, just 26 per cent of all voters believe the Republican Party should continue to follow Mr Trump, compared to 69 per cent who think it should go in a new direction.
However, a 60 per cent majority of Republican voters still think Mr Trump should remain their leader. That is down from 83 per cent when the same question was asked in 2018.
The Presidents approval rating is significantly better in this poll than in Pews version, with Mr Trump finishing his term at 38 per cent. However, he is the only president since the survey started (back when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in power) to average a net negative approval rating throughout his time in office.
According to the ABC/Washington Post poll, a 56-42 majority believes Congress should remove Mr Trump from office and disqualify him from running again.
The upshot here is that the riot, and Mr Trump’s role in inciting it, appear to have had a more significant effect on the public’s opinion of him than anything else that’s happened since he took office in 2017.
New @ABC News/WaPo poll finds nearly 7 in 10 think Republicans should lead the party in a different direction. https://t.co/LVMcg4Rr1Upic.twitter.com/8bEhgYRzSp
— ABC News (@ABC) January 15, 2021
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