‘A Line of BS!’ CNN’s Harry Enten Thrashes MAGA Argument That Trump’s Approval Rating Is Lousy Because of Bad Polls
CNN polling guru Harry Enten completely trashed the premise that the only reason President Donald Trump’s 100-day approval rating is underwater is because of bad polls.
Appearing on CNN News Central Wednesday, Enten rejected the argument from Trump allies that the polls are underestimating the president badly and that he would actually have a positive rating if the data were accurate.
“A lot of Trump advocates, including Trump himself, has argued that because the polls were off in 2024, quote unquote, you can’t trust the polls,” Enten said. “Now, that is a line of BS! That is the scientific term for it, is BS!”
Enten explained how a spate of new polls in recent days show the president 12 points underwater — a number that is lower than any of his predecessors over at least the past eight decades at the same point in their term. The CNN chief data analyst then recalculated the numbers assuming the polls underestimated Trump by the same margin as they did in 2024.
“Let’s say the polls are off like they were in 2024,” Enten said. “What would his net approval rating be? Well, it’s pretty gosh darn similar. It’s minus 10 points. He’s still way underwater. Historically low for a president, only basically matching himself last time around.”
He added, “The national polls, although they underestimated Trump in 2024, they only underestimated his margin by about two points. So we give him the two points here, and he’s still swimming with the fishes — way underwater, no matter what way you put it.”
Enten went a step further and assumed a polling error comparable to 2018 — the midway point of Trump’s first term. The numbers were no better for the president — in fact, they were worse.
“Let’s just say the polls are off like they were in 2018 because we’re heading into a midterm election,” Enten said. “All the House Republicans, some Senate Republicans, wondering how popular is Donald Trump? Well, if the polls were off like they were in 2018 — get this — his net approval rating, we apply that same error, would be minus 13 points, which is actually a point worse than it currently is according to the average of the national polls at minus 12 points. That is because in 2018, the national polling actually underestimated Democrats when it came to the national House vote. So if the polls are off like they were in 2018, that does Donald Trump no favors in terms of his popularity. It’s actually slightly worse.”
The data guru added that Trump can’t even hang his hat on an outlier poll, because all of the major recent surveys put him in roughly the same range.
“Trump’s net approval rating, we take a look at all the five national polls, underwater, underwater, underwater, underwater,” Enten said. All by double digits at this particular point. There is just no good signs for Donald Trump when it comes to his popularity — at least when it come to his net approval rate. It is historically low, no matter how you slice it.”
Watch above, via CNN.
