Attention to news in 2025

Posted on 2025-12-27 by Charles

What we noticed and what we ignored

Time for a look back at the news of 2025 and what the public paid attention to and what it largely ignored. The year has not lacked for news, especially political news as Donald Trump expanded his authority through executive orders, followed by litigation over those orders.

My Marquette Law School Poll asks how much people have heard or read about recent events in the news in each poll:

Here are some recent topics in the news. How much have you heard or read about each of these?

Polls are conducted every other month, six times a year. This is not a comprehensive review of news events but provides a look at how much attention the public gave to a wide variety of mostly political news. Topics are picked from recent events that have received significant coverage and raise important political issues, with more emphasis on news stories published within a few weeks of each poll’s field dates.

Figure 1 shows the 32 topics asked about over the year.

The top topic of the year, by a substantial margin, is tariffs. The May survey came a month after Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement of tariffs on April 2 and the subsequent changes made in rates and implementation dates. Fully 81% of U.S. adults said they had heard or read a lot about the tariffs.

The second most attention went to Trump’s plans for deportation of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, with 70% hearing a lot about this in the first month of the administration. Subsequent items concerning immigration issues varied in visibility, with the mistaken deportation of a man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador in March ranking as the 7th most followed event, with 63% hearing a lot. When Garcia was returned to the U.S. in June, only 37% heard a lot about that, ranking 25th of 32 news items.

Cuts to the federal workforce ranked 3rd most followed story, with 67% hearing a lot as of May. Rounding out the top five news items were the war between Israel and Iran in June and the contentious meeting between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on February 28th in the Oval Office. U.S. airstrikes on nuclear facilities in Iran ranked 6th.

At the bottom of the chart are Trump’s attempts to remove a member of the Federal Reserve Board and the firing of the director of the Centers for Disease Control, followed closely by 30% and 29% respectively.

If you follow politics enough to be reading this post you will probably to shocked that attention to the November elections for governor in New Jersey and Virginia ranks 31st of 32 events, with only 28% hearing a lot about this. For us political junkies, it is a reminder that much of the public doesn’t follow politics closely, and especially not elections in states other than their own.

The honor of being the least followed of the 32 stories is Trump’s extended diplomatic trip to Asia in late October, during the shutdown of the federal government, with only 24% who paid a lot of attention to that trip.

Attention to news by party

Figure 2 shows attention to these news topics by party. A higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans say they have read or heard a lot about most of the news events covered during 2025. By comparison to either party, independents are considerably less likely to have followed news across every item.

Highly visible events receive more attention across all partisan lines while more obscure events are also followed less by each party group. The correlation of attention for Democrats and Republicans is .78. Independent attention correlates with Democratic attention at .91, and with Republican attention at .85. In short, news tends to penetrate each partisan group in similar ways though with generally lower attention from Republicans and especially independents.

Republican vs Democratic attention to news

Figure 3 shows the attention gap between Republicans and Democrats across the 32 topics, arranged by size of the difference between Republican and Democratic attention. For the news items we asked about, Democrats say they have heard or read more than do Republicans for 24 items, Republicans more for 5 items and the parties are tied for 3 items.

It is notable that the items with greater attention from Republicans are closely tied to Trump. Attention to his inaugural address shows the largest Republican advantage over Democrats in attention, 27-percentage points, followed by Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress (don’t call it a State of the Union address) with an 11-point GOP lead in attention. Other topics with a Republican advantage closely concern Trump–the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas and the U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

At the opposite end of the partisan attention gap, Democrats paid much more attention to the “No Kings” protests in October, by 23-points, and to a measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico in the winter by 20-points. Democrats also paid substantially more attention than Republicans to the firing of the CDC director and reductions in the federal workforce.

Perhaps surprisingly, Democrats paid considerably more attention in September to the potential release of the Jeffrey Epstein files than did Republicans, by 16-points. (This does not cover the actual release of the files in December, after our final poll of 2025 in November.) Coverage of this issue has emphasized pressure from Republicans and MAGA activists for the release, though Democrats also supported the law to require the files to be made public.

This invites the question of whether Democrats simply pay more attention to politics than do Republicans.

In fact, attention to politics is virtually identical for Republicans and Democrats, while independents are much less attentive in general. We ask

Some people seem to follow what’s going on in politics most of the time, whether there’s an election going on or not. Others aren’t that interested. How often do you follow what’s going on in politics…?

Forty-nine percent of Democrats say they follow politics most of the time, as do 48% of Republicans, a trivial difference. In contrast, only 26% of independents say they follow politics most of the time. The lower attention from independents is reflected in their notably lower levels of attention to news events, but this can’t account for Republican and Democratic differences across news items. Table 1 shows attention to politics by partisanship in 2025 surveys.

One plausible explanation is that partisans follow different news sources, and those sources give different emphasis to specific news events. I don’t have data on the actual content of various news sources, but in my data there are only small (typically 3-4 point differences) in awareness of news events between Republicans who follow only conservative news sources and those who follow a mix of conservative and liberal sources, and a similarly small difference for Democrats who follow only liberal sources versus a mix of liberal and conservative sources. This casts some doubt on the idea that it is differences in content that drives differential awareness, and suggests that partisanship has more to do with what news people pay attention to, and remember. More on this in a future post.

The data tables

For those who want to see the numbers in detail here you go. Table 2 shows those who heard or read a lot, a little and nothing at all for each news event. While there is some variation, the most prominent news items have high “heard a lot” and low “nothing at all”, and the less prominent items reverse this.

Table 3 shows high attention to news by party identification.

Religion among the young

Posted on 2025-12-09 by Charles

Are young people newly embracing religion or not?

Contrasting takes on religion and the young. There have been a number of stories like this Washington Post piece with vivid and interesting examples of 20-somethings embracing religion. (Link should allow door through the paywall.) https://wapo.st/3KltFEh

But contrast that with a new Pew report finding stable religious practice over the past 5 years, young less religious than older, declining religiosity among young women, no rise among young men. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/12/08/religion-holds-steady-in-america/

The newspaper stories aren’t misleading about specific cases. Obviously individual local churches may be growing and flourishing even as the national picture is one of stability or decline. But it is a reminder that there is pressure to generalize from specific instances to broad generalizations. Caution and perspective are helpful.

No second acts: Repeat performances in Wisconsin elections

Posted on 2025-12-03 by Charles

Is the second time the charm?

They say there are no second acts in politics. In Wisconsin that has been the case for the last 27 years, at least when it comes to statewide contests for governor and U.S. Senate. Mandela Barnes’ entry in the 2026 governor’s race will attempt to break the dismal recent record.

Consider the examples of Tom Barrett (lost governor’s races in 2010 and 2012), Tim Michels (lost Senate race in 2004 and lost governor’s race in 2022), Russ Feingold (lost Senate races in 2010 and 2016), Eric Hovde (lost GOP primary for Senate in 2012, lost Senate race in 2024), and Mark Neumann (lost Senate race in 1998, lost GOP primary for governor in 2010 and lost GOP primary for Senate in 2012). Even Tommy Thompson, who won four races for governor, fell short 14 years later in his 2012 bid for the Senate. You have to go back to the 1970s to find a successful second act in Wisconsin statewide elections.

What does this record say about Barnes’ position in the 2026 race for governor? There are some advantages that are important. He will likely start out as the best known candidate in a field of some 7 or 8 candidates. In my Marquette Law School Poll of Wisconsin, Oct. 15-22, the three best known Democrats had name identification ranging from 22% (Hong) to 25% (Rodriguez) to 26% (Crowley), with the rest in the teens. Barnes was not included as he had not entered the race. At the end of his 2022 Senate race, Barnes had a name ID of 85%, though when he started that race as the sitting Lt. Governor his ID rate was 37% in Feb. 2022. There is falloff in ID between races. Barrett finished his 2010 governor’s race with 84% name recognition, which fell to 61% in Jan. 2012 at the start of the recall election. Feingold fell from 95% in 2010 to 75% in Jan. 2016.

In two recent polls that included his name (though unannounced at the time) Barnes was ahead in the Democratic primary field with 16% support in a Sept. 28-30 poll sponsored by Platform Communications and ahead with 21% in a TIPP poll conducted Nov. 17-21. In both polls all other candidates were below 10%, with a third to half of voters undecided. Those polls didn’t measure name recognition.

Barnes also has the advantage of having raised substantial money in his 2022 Senate bid, giving him a donor list to tap that none of the other candidates have.

Those are positive elements for Barnes and each gives him an initial advantage some eight months ahead of the primary.

The reason for doubt is the track record of candidates running statewide following a previous statewide loss. The second time around has not shown much improvement in general election vote percentage (though each won their second round primaries, except for Neumann).

Name ID

Repeat candidates begin their second races with lower name ID than when they finished their first race, with slippage of about 20 points for Barrett and Feingold. Hovde began both races with very low name ID. All ended their second races with high name ID, though Feingold didn’t quite reach the high levels he had in 2010.

Barnes began his 2022 Senate race with a name ID rate in the mid-30s, rising to the mid-80s. We don’t yet know how much that has declined since 2022.

The chart shows the changes in name ID across the year leading up to each election. There is need to rebuild name recognition in the second act, but candidates largely succeed in doing so, and start with a higher level than first time candidates.

Net favorable ratings

Each of these candidates has suffered declines in net favorability across their elections. Decline late in the campaign is apparent for each candidate. Feingold stands out for having net positive favorability in both races he lost. The others all ended in negative territory, with Barrett and Hovde more net negative in their second races than in their first. Feingold’s first and second are about equal.

Bottom line

We don’t know how the next eight months until the primary, and eleven months to the general election, will unfold. What these past second acts have shown in that initial advantages in name ID and campaign experience, including established donors, have not produced success in the second campaigns over the past quarter of a century. Barnes now has the chance to change that somewhat daunting record.

Trump approval through Nov. 2025

Posted on 2025-11-28 by Charles

President Trump’s approval has declined in October and November, after holding pretty steady July-Sept. There was steady decline Jan-Mar, then a sharper fall after announcing tariffs in April. Approval rose in May after backing off on tariffs. Then a small decline in June. Current decline is across most pollsters.

Gallup November Trump approval: 36% approve, 60% disapprove, a 5 point drop in approval and 6 point increase in disapproval since Oct. Several points below my approval trend across all polls which puts approval at 40.5%, disapproval at 56.1%

Here is Gallup approval history since FDR

Public opinion on U.S. Supreme Court Cases, Oct. 2024 term

Posted on 2025-06-18 by Charles

Cases of the Oct. 2024 term

Links to SCOTUSBlog page for each case

Classified documents

A federal judge in Florida has dismissed the case charging Trump with illegally retaining classified documents and obstructing government efforts to recover the documents. The judge ruled that the appointment of the special counsel violated the Constitution. Do you favor or oppose this ruling?

Poll dates	Favor	Oppose	Don’t know
7/24-8/1/24	37	43	19

Party ID	Poll dates	Favor	Oppose	Don’t know
Republican	7/24-8/1/24	66	12	21
Independent	7/24-8/1/24	25	30	45
Democrat	7/24-8/1/24	12	76	12

TikTok Ban

TikTok v. Garland

In January the Supreme Court upheld a law requiring the social media app TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, to be sold or banned in the U.S. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
1/27-2/6/25	62	38

Party ID	Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
Republican	1/27-2/6/25	73	27
Independent	1/27-2/6/25	53	47
Democrat	1/27-2/6/25	54	46

Halt Trump criminal sentencing

Trump v. New York

In January the Supreme Court rejected Donald Trump’s request to halt his criminal sentencing in New York where he was convicted in May on 34 felony counts, allowing sentencing to proceed. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
1/27-2/6/25	65	35

Party ID	Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
Republican	1/27-2/6/25	43	57
Independent	1/27-2/6/25	70	30
Democrat	1/27-2/6/25	87	12

Texas porn access

Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton

In January the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning a Texas law meant to prevent minors from accessing sexual materials on the internet, through a requirement that adults prove they are 18 or over by submitting government-issued IDs in order to access sexually oriented websites. Do you think the court should uphold this law or strike it down for infringing on the rights of adults?

Poll dates	Uphold the law	Strike it down
1/27-2/6/25	69	31

Party ID	Poll dates	Uphold the law	Strike it down
Republican	1/27-2/6/25	78	22
Independent	1/27-2/6/25	74	26
Democrat	1/27-2/6/25	57	43

Freeze foreign aid payments

Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition

[In March, the Supreme Court rejected President Trump’s request to freeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid, sending the case back to a lower court for further proceedings.] How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
3/17-27/25	58	42

Party ID	Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
Republican	3/17-27/25	39	61
Independent	3/17-27/25	60	40
Democrat	3/17-27/25	76	24

EPA regulation limits

City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency

[In March, the Supreme Court ruled that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was entitled to impose specific requirements on permit holders to prevent pollution but not to make the permit holders responsible simply because water quality has fallen below the agency’s standards.] How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
3/17-27/25	48	52

Party ID	Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
Republican	3/17-27/25	59	41
Independent	3/17-27/25	45	55
Democrat	3/17-27/25	38	62

Religious charter school

Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond

[In April, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case asking whether a state that generally funds charter schools as alternatives to traditional public schools may refuse to fund a charter school simply because it is explicitly religious.] How do you think the Court should rule?

Poll dates	The state may refuse to fund the religious charter school	The state is required to fund a religious charter school
3/17-27/25	57	43

Party ID	Poll dates	The state may refuse to fund the religious charter school	The state is required to fund a religious charter school
Republican	3/17-27/25	45	55
Independent	3/17-27/25	60	40
Democrat	3/17-27/25	68	32

Ban transition treatment for minors

United States v. Skrmetti

[In December, the Supreme Court heard arguments challenging a Tennessee law that prohibits medical providers from prescribing puberty-delaying medication or performing gender transition surgery for youth under 18.] How do you think the Court should rule?

Poll dates	Uphold the Tennessee law	Overturn the law
3/17-27/25	72	27
5/5-15/25	70	30

Party ID	Poll dates	Uphold the Tennessee law	Overturn the law
Republican	3/17-27/25	90	10
Republican	5/5-15/25	92	8
Independent	3/17-27/25	79	21
Independent	5/5-15/25	73	27
Democrat	3/17-27/25	52	48
Democrat	5/5-15/25	44	56

Trump administration must facilitate return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Noem v. Abrego Garcia

In April, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law requires the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a man erroneously deported to El Salvador. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
5/5-15/25	67	33

Party ID	Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
Republican	5/5-15/25	41	59
Independent	5/5-15/25	65	34
Democrat	5/5-15/25	94	6

Must provide due process before deportation

Trump v. J.G.G.

In April, the Supreme Court said that those the administration is seeking to deport under the Alien Enemies Act must receive notice that they are subject to deportation within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually seek court review before such deportation occurs. How much do you favor or oppose this decision?

Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
5/5-15/25	65	35

Party ID	Poll dates	Favor	Oppose
Republican	5/5-15/25	43	57
Independent	5/5-15/25	61	39
Democrat	5/5-15/25	90	10

Parents can opt kids out of LGBTQ readings

Mahmoud v. Taylor

In April, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case asking whether parents of elementary school students should be able to opt their children out of reading classes concerning stories about LGBTQ+ characters, if those stories conflict with the families’ religious beliefs. How do you think the Court should rule?

Poll dates	Parents should be able to opt out	The schools should set the curriculum for all
5/5-15/25	70	30

Party ID	Poll dates	Parents should be able to opt out	The schools should set the curriculum for all
Republican	5/5-15/25	91	9
Independent	5/5-15/25	69	31
Democrat	5/5-15/25	48	52

Cases not yet polled

Reverse Discrimination

Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services

Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s “background circumstances” rule — which requires members of a majority group to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard to prevail on a Title VII discrimination claim — cannot be squared with either the text of Title VII or the Supreme Court’s precedents.

Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Jackson on June 5, 2025. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined.

Smith & Wesson v Mexico

Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos

Holding: Because Mexico’s complaint does not plausibly allege that the defendant gun manufacturers aided and abetted gun dealers’ unlawful sales of firearms to Mexican traffickers, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act bars the lawsuit.

Judgment: Reversed, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Kagan on June 5, 2025. Justices Thomas and Jackson filed concurring opinions.

Police excessive use of force

Barnes v. Felix

Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit’s moment-of-threat rule — a framework for evaluating police shootings which requires a court to look only to the circumstances existing at the precise time an officer perceived the threat inducing him to shoot — improperly narrows the Fourth Amendment analysis of police use of force.

Judgment: Vacated and Remanded , 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Kagan on May 15, 2025. Justice Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion, in which Justices Thomas, Alito, and Barrett joined.

Regulation of Flavored Vapes

Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments

Holding: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit erred in setting aside as arbitrary and capricious the FDA’s orders denying respondents’ applications for authorization to market new e-cigarette products pursuant to The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009; the 5th Circuit also relied on an incorrect standard to reject the FDA’s claim of harmless error regarding the agency’s failure to consider marketing plans submitted by respondents.

Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Alito on April 2, 2025. Justice Sotomayor filed a concurring opinion.

Ghost guns

Garland v. VanDerStok

Emergency application for stay is granted on Aug. 8, 2023. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh would deny the application for stay.

Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should stay the judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas baring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives from enforcing a 2022 rule regulating “ghost guns” as firearms.

Birthright Citizenship or Universal Injunction

Trump v. CASA

Emergency application for partial stay

Issue: Whether the Supreme Court should stay the district courts’ nationwide preliminary injunctions on the Trump administration’s Jan. 20 executive order ending birthright citizenship except as to the individual plaintiffs and identified members of the organizational plaintiffs or states.

Race and Congressional districting

Louisiana v. Callais

Issue: (1) Whether the majority of the three-judge district court in this case erred in finding that race predominated in the Louisiana legislature”s enactment of S.B. 8; (2) whether the majority erred in finding that S.B. 8 fails strict scrutiny; (3) whether the majority erred in subjecting S.B. 8 to the preconditions specified in Thornburg v. Gingles; and (4) whether this action is non-justiciable.

The GOP race that wasn’t

Posted on 2024-02-25 by Charles

A year ago there seemed to be a serious threat to Trump in the GOP. His name was DeSantis.

In March 2023, DeSantis won 35% to Trump’s 40% of GOP registered voters. (Haley was at 5%)

But DeSantis only lost ground through the year, while Trump gained.

Still, Trump didn’t move much past 50% until after Jan. 2024 once the primary process began.

As of Feb 5-15, 2024, pre-South Carolina primary, Trump holds 73% nationally to Haley’s 15% and DeSantis is no longer a candidate.

Trump rose modestly in the spring, then more in the fall, with a big jump by February. Haley was slow to rise, then bumped up in Nov. and Feb., but to only 15%.

The race that could have been.

DeSantis not only started strong but was a threat to Trump from within the Trump wing of the party. In March 2023 DeSantis got 32% among Reps *favorable* to Trump, plus 45% among those unfavorable to Trump.

Had DeSantis been able to expand that incursion into Trump land this could have been a real race. He did not. Instead DeSantis’s support fell across both Trump-favorable and Trump-unfavorable Republicans. Whether because of Trump’s effective attacks on DeSantis or the failures of DeSantis, the race that could have been was not.

Nikki Haley instead is the last contender standing against Trump, and yet she fails to reach even 20% support. She never was a contender with those who like Trump, not reaching even 6% among the Trump-favorable Republicans. But she has captured the wing of the GOP that does not like Trump, winning 65% of those Republicans.

For her, the tragedy is that nothing in the campaign succeeded in increasing the share of those unfavorable to Trump. Instead the opposite occurred, Trump’s favorability hovered around 70% until July, then rose to 80% in Sept. and stands at 84% in February.

As Haley has won an increasing share, now 2/3rds, of Republicans unfavorable to Trump, that pool has declined by half, from 30% to 16%. Even taking all of this smaller pool cannot make an alternative to Trump competitive in the primaries.

A year ago, 30% of Republicans were unfavorable to Trump, and DeSantis was eating into Trump-favorable Republicans. His effort failed. Haley has never won more than negligible support from the Trump-favorables, and even as she has consolidated the support of Trump-unfavorable Republicans, that group has been shrinking, to now less than one in five Republicans.

In March 2023 the GOP had a significant 30% who did not like Trump and a majority who supported someone else or were undecided. That moment has passed.

A slow polls look at the first GOP debate

Posted on 2023-09-21 by Charles

Debates are followed by “instant reaction” polls of debate viewers, taken overnight and posted the day after. These have some value in capturing opinion of those so interested they actually watched the debate. But this is a poor measure of the impact of the debate, which to be meaningful neeeds to be lasting. Debate performance is as much, or more, about launching the next month for the campaign as it is about the snappy line of the moment.

Thus there is more than the usual need for a slow polling look at the debate. Now, nearly a month after, do we see any meaningful shift in candidate standing with voters? And was the response steady over time, or a blip that quickly faded? On the eve of the second debate, let’s get a clear view of the impact of the first debate.

A month before vs. a month after

I look at the polls taken in the month (26 days) following the debate, Aug. 24 through Sept. 18 (the most recent poll as of Sept 21), and compare polls taken in the 28 days prior to the debate (July 25-Aug. 22). Let’s call these the “pre-” and “post-debate” polls.

First, how do the candidates stand in national polls of Republicans and independents who lean Republican registered voters? Data are from the FiveThirtyEight.com collection of national polls.

Figure 1 shows the comparison for the eight debate participants. Only Nikki Haley has a meaningful increase in support, up 2.4 percentage points following the debate. No one else changes by even a single percentage point.

The trends before and after the debate tell the same story. Haley looks to have continued to rise after the debate, while Ramaswamy has slightly declined, as has DeSantis. All these changes are small, except for Haley.

The means and medians and number of polls are shown in the table below. In contrast to Haley’s increase, Christie and Trump rise by less than a tenth of a percentage point while the rest decline, all by less than a percentage point. Pence, Scott and DeSantis have the largest declines, though even DeSantis is down by only 0.6 percentage points.

And the candidate who wasn’t there didn’t get a boost or a drop: Trump’s support changed by 0.03 percentage points.

If the debate was thought to potentially scramble the standings, it did so only for Haley, though her support remains in single digits. Pence and Ramaswamy took much of the debate time, and a good bit of post-debate commentary. Neither has seen a lasting payoff.

Quick polls get attention, but slow polls are more illuminating.

Trump indictments, revisited

Posted on 2023-09-13 by Charles

In my previous post I argued that the indictments of former president Donald Trump did not in fact boost his standing with voters, despite the often repeated claim that they did.

Two folks I respect pushed back on the NY indictment, though agreeing the others had no effect. Here I respond, and agree in part. In any case, I think this shows a positive discussion is possible over such matters! My bottom line is Trump may have gained support in the GOP primary following the NY indictment. But I don’t find evidence of any gain in overall favorability with all registered voters. My new analysis (thanks to Philip and Sam) finds some evidence that the Florida indictment lowered his support and favorability, something I did not mention in my original post..

Since my original post, Philip Bump at The Washington Post published a nice story looking at my claim, and concluding there was in fact a boost from the first indictment in New York but agreeing there were no boosts from the subsequent indictments. See his piece here. (Link should not be paywalled.)

Sam Wang posted a similar point on Bluesky (sorry, don’t know how to copy a link to that)

Let’s start with the strong case, a rise in Trump GOP primary support following the NY indictment. Here is Trump’s percentage i.n GOP primary polls before and after each indictment. (I’ve updated the most recent polls since my original post, which affects only the post-GA data.)

We all agree the post-New York support is higher than pre-indictment. The only disagreement is that there was a trend of rising Trump primary support before the indictment and that rise continued for over a month after the indictment. My original post claimed the post-NY increase was primary due to the pre-existing trend, rather than an indictment effect. Bump and Wang disagree and see an indictment effect. Here is the chart with the full trend.

The red line shows the overall trend across all polls, the dots are individual polls. The high-frequency polls from YouGov (85 in all) make up the dense set of dots mostly above the red trend line. Those dense dots DO show a bump up immediately after the NY indictment. In my original post I discounted that, thinking the red line was increasing before and after and I gave more weight to that. But I discounted the dense set of polls that do rise. Wang raises the point but Bump dives into this and does more substantial analysis that I now think supports a NY indictment effect.

Here are my finding on this, in response to their points, and finding myself now agreeing there was an independent effect of the NY indictment even considering the trend before and after.

I fit several models, but here are the two that make me conclude NY had an effect. The dependent variable is Trump percent in primary polls. You do NOT want to use his margin over DeSantis because the latter has been declining steadily, so the margin confounds Trump support with DeSantis’ weakening. As you can see in the chart, Trump has been pretty flat since mid-May.

The models I fit are a polynomial in time, which allows for the curve of the support trend, which rises, then flattens. Obviously not a constant linear trend. I fit one quadratic and one cubic fit (the latter probably overfitting the trend but our focus in on the coefficients for the indictments.)

The first model is the quadratic trend.

The NY coefficient is a 4.12 percentage point increase in Trump support after the indictment, and is a statistically significant effect. So this agrees with Bump and Wang, and shows I dismissed this effect too quickly.

The model also suggests that the Florida indictment may have lowered Trump’s support by 2.8 points, a marginally statistically significant result. There is no evidence that DC or GA indictments changed his support. Both have negative but non-significant estimates.

An issue is whether the quadratic trend is sufficient to capture the trend over time, independent of the indictments. As a check I reestimate the model with a cubic in time. That model is shown next.

The NY effect here is a 4.8 point increase, which remains statistically significant. The Florida effect remains negative but falls short of statistical significance. So either way, the NY indictment seems to have boosted Trump with GOP primary voters over and above the trend leading up to the indictment.

On the other hand, Trump’s favorability ratings with all registered voters don’t seem to have gone up with NY, but may have declined slightly with the FL indictment.

Here the trend is nearly flat since January, so I estimate one model that is linear in time, and one that is quadratic as a robustness check. The linear time model is

The time trend is virtually flat, with no evidence of a NY indictment effect. However, the Florida indictment seems to have lowered favorability by 3.6 points.

Using a quadratic in time is similar:

The Florida estimate is a 3.8 point decrease in favorability, and marginally significant, with no evidence for a more complicated time trend. As a final check I ran a cubic time trend with the FL coefficient of -3.5, but p=.056 so not as convincing an effect.

Bottom line is the NY indictment didn’t show any evidence of boosting Trump’s favorability among all registered voters, but it does seem to have improved his standing in the GOP primary by 4.1 to 4.8 points depending on the model.

My thanks to Philip and Sam for pushing this point and adding to the analysis.

Trump polling and his indictments

Posted on 2023-08-31 by Charles

To cut to the chase, the indictments of Donald Trump have not boosted him in the polls, either for favorability or for his support in the GOP primary. This claim keeps being repeated as if the data support it. It does not.

Net favorability nationally

Trump’s net favorability (percent favorable minus percent unfavorable) inched up 1.5-2 points following the first indictment in New York on March 30, 2023, from a median of -14.0 to -12.5, and mean of -14.2 to -12.2. This is the only period of a (slight) improvement compared to the pre-indictment period (Jan. 1 to Mar. 29), Following the Florida indictment the median fell to -18, then -19 after the DC indictment and rose -17.5 after Georgia. (Table of full results below.)

The net favorability is for the national population, so perhaps Trump gained substantially among Republican voters, but not the full population. His support in the GOP primary vote gives us that test.

Trump GOP Primary support

Compared to pre-indictment, Trump did have higher support among Republicans in the primary vote following the New York indictment, a median of 49% prior to the NY indictment and 57% after NY but before Florida. There was no further change after Florida (still 57%), or after DC (still 57%.) After the Georgia indictment the median is 58%. If there was in indictment effect boost at all (see below for why you should doubt that) it was over by the Florida documents case indictment.

The remaining doubt about indictment effects is provided by the trend chart below. Trump’s support for the nomination had been rising steadily since Jan. 1 through the spring. It rose at the same rate following the New York indictment as it had been rising prior to the indictment. The trend levels off in early May, a month after the NY indictment and about a month before the Florida indictment. Since mid-may there has been very little trend in Trump’s primary vote. (Each point in the chart is a national poll and the red line is a local regression trend estimate.) Trump’s margin over DeSantis has continued to climb but that is due entirely to DeSantis’ collapse in the polls, not to any gains by Trump since May. Trump’s current 58% support is more than enough to win the nomination. But it hasn’t been increasing for four months.

There are reports of surges in donations following the indictments. But if so, that hasn’t been reflected in the polling for either favorability or for GOP primary support.

The table below shows the median, mean and number of national polls used in the charts above. Note there are only 4 favorability polls completed between the DC and GA indictments, though there were 16 primary polls in the same interval.

“Indictments help Trump” is folklore that needs to be corrected. There is no polling evidence the indictments help, or hurt, Trump. Any effect of criminal trials remains to be seen.

Reference

Trump and Wisconsin Republicans

Posted on 2023-07-02 by Charles

First Choice for Nominee

Using Republicans and independents who lean Republicans, Trump gets 31% and DeSantis gets 30%, a surprisingly close race. Trump leads by considerably more in other states and in national polls. What’s going on in my June Wisconsin @MULawPoll?

One might ask if independents who lean Republican are distorting this. But no. Among “pure” Republicans, Trump gets 35% and DeSantis gets 34%. Among independents who lean Republican, there are more other and undecided choices but the margin is not much changed: Trump gets 23% and DeSantis 25%.

So the close first choice race is not because of including leaners: it is a 1 point Trump margin without leaners too. (Scroll right for full table)

Group	Chris Christie	Ron DeSantis	Larry Elder	Nikki Haley	Asa Hutchinson	Mike Pence	Vivek Ramaswamy	Tim Scott	Donald Trump	Haven’t decided
All Rep+Leaners	1	30	0	3	0	6	3	5	31	21
Rep	1	34	0	1	0	5	2	4	35	18
Lean Rep	1	25	1	6	1	7	4	6	23	27

Head-to-head second choice

DeSantis picks up a big margin in the head-to-head second choice question, DeSantis 57% to 41% for Trump. Who moves from the first choice?

Those who pick another named Republican candidate (other than DeSantis or Trump) break 74-25 for DeSantis on the 2nd choice. And the undecided on first choice break 65-28 for DeSantis. See Table 2.

Trump is a lot of Republican’s first choice, but barely a quarter switch to him as their 2nd choice.

1st choice	Donald Trump	Ron DeSantis	Don’t know
DeSantis	1	98	1
Trump	98	2	0
Other candidates	25	74	1
Undecided	28	65	7

Is this because Republicans have turned against Trump?

Despite getting just 31% of first choice votes, Wisconsin Republicans still like Trump. Of all Reps and leaners, Trump favorability is 68% and unfavorable is 30% with a tiny 2% who say they haven’t heard enough about him.

Favorability is a shade higher with pure Reps, 72%, and a good bit lower, though still net positive at 60%, among leaners. Those ratings are shown in Table 3 (a). In October 2022, Trump was 78% favorable among Reps and 62% favorable among leaners, so a little decline with both, but not massive change.

DeSantis favorabiity is shown in Table 3 (b). He is 1 point behind Trump overall, 2 points above Trump on favorable with pure Republicans, and 7 points below Trump among leaners, but with much more haven’t heard enough and less unfavorable.

So there may be a small recent decline in Trump’s favorable ratings with Reps and with leaners, it isn’t a lot compared to where he was in October 2022.

Table 3: Favorability by Rep and Lean Rep Party ID

Group	Favorable	Unfavorable	Haven’t heard enough
All Rep+Leaners	68	30	2
Rep	72	25	3
Lean Rep	60	39	0

Group	Favorable	Unfavorable	Haven’t heard enough
All Rep+Leaners	67	14	20
Rep	74	10	16
Lean Rep	53	21	26

Well, did they just not vote for him in 2020?

Maybe these are somehow less Trump supportive Reps than they should be.

Asked to recall their vote in 2020, 95% of Reps say they voted for Trump, as do 79% of the leaners. In our late October 2020 poll, 90% of Reps and 79% of leaners said they were voting for Trump. This is not a peculiarly anti-Trump sample of Republicans.

Table 4: 2020 vote recall by party id, and Oct. 2020 pre-election vote

Group	Donald Trump	Joe Biden	Someone else
All Rep+Leaners	90	5	5
Rep	95	4	1
Lean Rep	79	7	13

Group	Donald Trump	Joe Biden	Jo Jorgensen
All Rep+Leaners	86	7	3
Rep	90	6	1
Lean Rep	79	8	6

Maybe they just aren’t as into you as they once were

There is a clear long term change in GOP views of Trump in Wisconsin since 2020. While he retains a core of vigorous supporters, Republicans and leaners do not have as favorable a view of Trump as they did in 2020. Table 5 shows this trend since January of 2020 until June of 2023.

Poll dates	Favorable	Unfavorable	Haven’t heard enough	Don’t know
1/8-12/20	83	16	0	1
2/19-23/20	87	10	1	1
3/24-29/20	84	12	0	3
5/3-7/20	88	9	1	1
6/14-18/20	81	13	3	3
8/4-9/20	83	14	1	2
8/30-9/3/20	80	15	3	1
9/30-10/4/20	85	13	2	1
10/21-25/20	88	11	1	0
8/3-8/21	75	18	3	3
10/26-31/21	72	23	2	4
2/22-27/22	70	21	3	5
4/19-24/22	68	24	3	4
6/14-20/22	75	19	3	3
8/10-15/22	71	21	2	5
9/6-11/22	72	24	0	4
10/3-9/22	70	22	2	6
10/24-11/1/22	72	17	2	6
6/8-13/23	68	30	2	1

For completeness, Table 6 shows the trends for pure Republicans and for leaners.

Table 6: Trump favorability, Jan. 2020-June 2023, among Replicans and leaners separately

Poll dates	Favorable	Unfavorable	Haven’t heard enough	Don’t know
1/8-12/20	87	12	0	0
2/19-23/20	91	7	1	1
3/24-29/20	88	10	1	2
5/3-7/20	92	5	1	1
6/14-18/20	84	12	1	4
8/4-9/20	85	13	1	1
8/30-9/3/20	84	11	3	1
9/30-10/4/20	90	9	1	0
10/21-25/20	89	10	1	0
8/3-8/21	83	12	3	2
10/26-31/21	77	18	2	2
2/22-27/22	80	11	2	5
4/19-24/22	73	19	2	4
6/14-20/22	81	17	1	0
8/10-15/22	77	15	2	5
9/6-11/22	79	16	0	4
10/3-9/22	78	15	2	5
10/24-11/1/22	78	12	3	5
6/8-13/23	72	25	3	0

Poll dates	Favorable	Unfavorable	Haven’t heard enough	Don’t know
1/8-12/20	76	22	1	1
2/19-23/20	78	18	1	3
3/24-29/20	78	17	0	5
5/3-7/20	81	16	1	1
6/14-18/20	76	17	6	1
8/4-9/20	78	16	2	3
8/30-9/3/20	73	25	2	0
9/30-10/4/20	74	19	5	2
10/21-25/20	84	14	1	0
8/3-8/21	60	30	4	5
10/26-31/21	60	31	2	6
2/22-27/22	53	37	5	4
4/19-24/22	58	35	4	2
6/14-20/22	62	23	7	8
8/10-15/22	61	33	1	6
9/6-11/22	57	39	0	4
10/3-9/22	54	35	2	7
10/24-11/1/22	62	26	1	8
6/8-13/23	60	39	0	1

Vote for Biden? Oh, goodness no.

Our GOP respondents aren’t as into Trump as in the past, but crossing over to vote for Biden remains a bridge too far. That goes for both Trump and DeSantis when matched against Biden, though DeSantis does a bit better with leaners, in Table 7.

Table 7: 2024 vote by party strength

Party stength	Donald Trump	Joe Biden	Haven’t decided	Don’t know	Refused
Rep	93	5	1	0	0
Lean Rep	78	12	6	1	3

Party stength	Ron DeSantis	Joe Biden	Haven’t decided	Don’t know	Refused
Rep	94	2	2	1	0
Lean Rep	87	12	2	0	0

Conclusions

Wisconsin Republicans are less attached to Trump than in 2020, are considering alternatives or are undecided, but not quick to embrace Trump if he isn’t already their 1st choice. But for the general election, they remain strongly Republican regardless of the candidates, and quite unwilling to vote for Biden.