‘Great news!’: Trump celebrates Fox Business goof that mistakenly added 12% to his approval – By William Cummings (USA Today) / April 11 2019
President Donald Trump posted a tweet Thursday celebrating his poll numbers as shown in a Fox Business graphic.
But there was a problem: the 55% approval number the graphic cited was actually the president’s unfavorable rating.
“Great news! #MAGA,” the president tweeted along with a screenshot from “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” The graphic read “Trump’s soaring approval,” which was above statistics that read “55% overall” and “58% economy.” It cited Georgetown Politics as the source.
The latter number was correct. The first Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Policy “Battleground Poll” for the 2020 presidential election found that 58% of voters approve of his handling of the economy. But the graphic implied his job approval rating was 55% when the poll actually found that only 43% approved of the job he is doing and 52% disapproved.
The poll, which surveyed 1,000 “likely voters,” also presented people with a list of names and asked them to say whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of that person. Forty-one percent of the respondents had a favorable impression of Trump, while 55% said they had an unfavorable one. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, had a 37% favorable rating and a 53% unfavorable one.
The Fox Business Network’s Blake Burman delivered an on-air correction to the error on Thursday.
“It’s been quite a start to the day for President Trump, though he did send out a tweet this morning from the Lou Dobbs show last night on Fox Business. That tweet featured a poll that was not entirely accurate, which Fox Business would like to correct,” Burman said.
“According to a poll from Georgetown University, 58% of respondents approved of the president’s handling of the economy. That portion of the graphic was right.,” he explained. “However, the graphic also showed that 55% of the respondents approve of the president, that number is not correct. The 55% number was those who have an unfavorable impression of President Trump.”
Mo Elleithee, the Georgetown University politics institute director, pointed out the error on Twitter.
“I’m the Director of @GUPolitics & this graphic is incorrect,” Elleithee tweeted. “The Battleground Poll shows 58% approval on the economy. But it shows only 43% overall approval, & 52% disapproval.”
Elleithee added that the “55% number is the President’s unfavorable rating. (Only 40% favorable.)”
A summary of the poll’s findings by Republican pollsters Ed Goeas and Brian Nienaber did not indicate the numbers were something for Trump to celebrate.
“Never before in modern day politics have we seen a presidential nominee of either political party with an unfavorable rating over 50%,” they said. But in 2016, a majority of voters also had an unfavorable opinion of Hillary Clinton in the poll.
Goeas and Brian Nienaber said at first glance, the numbers indicate Trump is in “significant political peril.”
“Where this any other political office holder, these are normally signs of defeat,” they said. But if Trump can “replicate the dynamics of the 2016 campaign,” and “if he can again turn this election into a referendum on personal economic opportunity, while the Democrats remain focused on Donald Trump’s persona and style, he can win re-election.”
The poll was conducted from March 31 to April 4 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1%.
