CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten brought more dour news on Tuesday for President Donald Trump’s approval ratings, saying his numbers with independents have sunk “completely underwater.”
Enten told anchor Kate Bolduan that Trump’s flip-flop decision on sweeping global tariffs have pushed independent voters further away from him. While his numbers at this point in his first term were negative 16 percent in 2017—then an all-time low—they’re now at negative 22 percent.
“He now holds, in this particular term, the worst ever net approval rating at this point in a presidency among independents,” Enten said. “He has set the new record. He is completely underwater with the center of the electorate.”
Enten said independents were particularly bristled by Trump’s global trade war, which sent the stock market crashing for days before he eventually reneged on the most dramatic figures. The plan caused Trump’s economic approval rating among independents to drop 30 points—from 1 percent to negative 29 percent.
“They hate what they’re hearing from Donald Trump, and they are abandoning him in record numbers,” Enten said. “You go back through the record books—I simply put, Kate Bolduan, can’t find anything close to this. This is such a record that there is no historical analogy to be 29 points underwater on the most important issue of the day with independents.”
“This right here, my dear friends, is political poison,” he added.
Enten said that, while independents may agree with Trump’s drastic efforts to curb immigration, they’re much less eager to back his economic efforts.
Enten said last week that Trump was the fastest president to plunge his economic approval rating into the negatives. In comparison, Enten said, former President Jimmy Carter took 11 months to get a negative net approval rating after the economy entered a recession under his watch.
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