Vanderbilt poll: Less than half of Tennessee voters approve of Trump – Chattanooga Times Free Press
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The latest Vanderbilt Poll found that just shy of half of Tennessee voters approve of President Donald Trump’s performance, down from the previous poll and dipping below 50% for the first time in Trump’s second term.
According to the results released May 20, independents and non-MAGA Republicans have both become less satisfied with the president, dipping 6-7% each, while Republicans remain highly in favor of the president overall. Independents are now at 36% approval.
The poll conducted in late April showed that just 49% of respondents approved of the president across all political beliefs, a decrease of 7 percentage points since the same question was asked in November, the first minority approval rating for the president in Tennessee since December 2017. Fifty-eight percent of respondents also indicated that they believe the country is generally moving in the wrong direction, up 6 points from November.
“His base is still intact, and Democrats still don’t like him at all, but independents’ support is declining quite a bit, and that should be a concern,” said John Geer, co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll.
The poll also showed substantial concern about the cost of living across all political parties, with 88% of respondents indicating that living in Tennessee is “very expensive” or “somewhat expensive.”
“Affordability has to be keeping Republican consultants up at night,” Geer said, noting that the issue will likely weigh heavily on Congressional midterm elections this November.
Though many states, including Tennessee, have redrawn Congressional districts in the last month to pad Republican control of the House ahead of hotly contested midterm races, Geer says Democrats still have a chance nationally because of the issues that have historically driven midterm turnout.
“You know, Democrats needed four to five seats (to take control of the House), but now they need, in reality, eight to 10. But we also know that midterms tend to be structured around approval ratings of the president and economic issues,” Geer said, noting that the party that does not control the White House often fares better in midterm elections anyway. “What that suggests to me is we’re going to have a situation where the structural issues work against Republicans.”
Geer also believes that the aggressive redistricting, which happened after the poll was conducted, may drive Democrats and minority voters to the polls, making a difference nationally, and, while less likely, potentially in some Tennessee races.
“Some of the new districts went from 75-25 Trump districts to 60-40 Trump. Well, all of a sudden, that means that maybe with a big swing election, you can see the Democrats picking up some seats,” he said, noting that while Memphis voters were divided, “they still get to vote somewhere.”
“Now it’s going to take a wave election, and I’m not predicting that in any way, shape or form,” he added.
Though the Tennessee gubernatorial election is led by two conservative Republicans — Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Rep. John Rose — who are closely aligned with Trump and will try to out-MAGA one another on the campaign trail, Geer says waning support for the president likely won’t impact that race.
“The Democrats haven’t really put up a candidate with name recognition, so the competition is in the Republican primary,” Geer said. “Once someone wins there, then it’s kind of game over.”
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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