Americans view Donald Trump as an agent of change. Most voters don’t regret their choice. And views on discrimination are highly polarized. This is HuffPollster for Tuesday, November 22, 2016.
MOST EXPECT TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY TO BRING CHANGE - Jennifer Agiesta: “Two weeks after Election Day, most Americans say President-elect Donald Trump will ultimately do a good job as president, though fewer approve of the way he’s handled the transition so far, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll. A narrow majority (53%), say they think Trump will do a very or fairly good job as president, and 40% say they have a lot of confidence in Trump to deal with the economy, a share that outpaces the percentage who had that much confidence in Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan ahead of their first inaugurations….All told, 66% say a Trump presidency will bring change to the country, but just 43% say it will be change for the better, twenty points below the 63% who thought Obama would bring change for the better in November 2008….Reviews are mixed for Trump’s transition so far, 46% approve of his handling of the transition, 45% disapprove. Those marks are well below approval ratings for Obama, Bush or Clinton during their transitions to the presidency.” [CNN]
MOST AMERICANS DON’T REGRET THEIR VOTE - HuffPollster: “Most Americans are standing by the decisions they made on Election Day, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds. Eighty-nine percent of all Americans who voted say they feel like they made the right choice in the presidential election, while just 3 percent regret their votes. Another 8 percent are unsure. Ninety-one percent of people who report having voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton, and 95 percent of those who report having voted for Republican Donald Trump, say they feel as though they made the right choice. A majority of those who didn’t make it out to the polls, meanwhile, say they don’t regret their decision not to vote, although more than one-quarter wish they had done so. Sixty percent of Americans who didn’t vote say they don’t mind not having done so, while 27 percent say they wish they had cast a ballot. Given a do-over, 27 percent of nonvoters say they’d choose Clinton, and 19 percent say they’d choose Trump. Sixteen percent say they’d pick someone else, and 38 percent maintain that they still wouldn’t vote.” [HuffPost]
NEARLY HALF OF TRUMP VOTERS SAY WHITES FACE A LOT OF DISCRIMINATION - HuffPollster: “Most of the nation thinks that black and Muslim Americans face “a lot of discrimination,” but voters who supported Donald Trump don’t agree, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov survey. Overall, 64 percent of the nation thinks that Muslim Americans face a lot of discrimination, up 10 points since a survey taken in June. Half say that black Americans face a lot of discrimination, with 44 percent saying the same about Latino Americans, 25 percent about Jewish Americans and 24 percent about white Americans….Trump voters are more likely to say there’s a lot of discrimination against whites than they are to say the same about any of the other groups included in the survey. Forty-five percent of Trump voters think white people in the U.S. face a lot of discrimination, with 40 percent saying the same about Muslims. Just 22 percent, however, think that black Americans face a lot of discrimination, and just 19 percent say the same of Jews and Latinos.” [HuffPost]
Many voters are pessimistic about race relations - Shiva Maniam: “Voters are far more pessimistic about progress in race relations under Donald Trump than they were after Barack Obama’s election eight years ago, and the shift has been particularly striking among blacks. Nearly half of U.S. voters (46%) expect Trump’s election to lead to worse race relations, while just 25% say they will improve (26% say there will be no difference). By contrast, after Obama’s election eight years ago, 52% of voters expected race relations to improve, while just 9% said they would be worse; roughly a third (36%) said there would be little change. A Pew Research Center survey of voters after Election Day finds that roughly three-quarters of blacks (74%) expect race relations to worsen following Trump’s election as president, while just 5% expect them to improve (17% expect little change).” [Pew]
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TUESDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-Mark Blumenthal explains why SurveyMonkey’s post-election polling finds a more heavily white working-class electorate than exit polls did. [SurveyMonkey]
-Philip Bump notes that more voters than usual didn’t vote for president on their ballot. [WashPost]
-Michael Tesler looks at non-college-educated white voters who left the Democratic Party. [WashPost]
-Sue Shellenbarger reports on a study finding that many students can’t tell real news from fake. [WSJ]