Don’t expect a surge in Trump’s approvals

The aerial attack on Iran won’t help the president bust through his natural ceiling of support.

The question on a lot of minds today is what impact the U.S. military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities this past weekend will have on President Trump’s standing with the public. Some no doubt will point to the surge in President George H.W. Bush’s approval rating to 89 percent after the 1991 victory in the Persian Gulf War. They might also point to his son, President George W. Bush, soaring as high as 90 percent approval after the 9/11 attacks.

But our politics has grown far more partisan since then, making it very difficult, if not impossible, for a president to reach those levels today. Starting during Bill Clinton’s first term and growing in intensity during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the two parties have embraced “negative partisanship”—hating the other party, its candidates, and leaders even more than they like or approve of those in their own party. This tribalism, exacerbated by gerrymandering and the silos created and intensified by the contemporary media landscape, has reshaped our politics, and not for the better.

By the time Trump took office in 2017, the partisan floors and ceilings were firmly cemented into place. During his first term in office, his lowest Gallup job-approval rating was 34 percent, coming at the end of his term; his highest was 49 percent, with an average of 41 percent. Among his fellow Republicans, Trump’s approval never dropped below 77 percent, reaching as high as 95 percent. Conversely, among Democrats, Trump’s approval hit as low as 2 percent, as high as 12 percent. So far in this second term, Trump’s approvals have remained in that same range.

President Biden’s lowest overall approval rating was 36 percent, just 2 points above Trump’s low; his highest was 57 percent, and his average was 42 percent, one point above that of Trump. When Biden left office, his last Gallup approval rating was 40 percent. Among Democrats, Biden never dropped below 75 percent, hitting a peak of 98 percent. Among Republicans, Biden’s lowest was the same 2 percent that had been Trump’s low with Democrats; Biden’s highest job approval among Republicans was 12 percent.

The two Presidents Bush provide good examples of what once could—but now will likely never—happen again: really high highs and really low lows. George H.W. Bush hit a low of 29 percent approval in July 1992, five months before losing reelection. Late in his second term, George W. Bush experienced his low approval of 25 percent.

These are lows that on their worst days, Biden and Trump never saw. Trump could find a cure for cancer, secure world peace, and end hunger for eternity; his approval ratings would still not reach those heights, nor could he drop as low as the Bushes did even if he shot the proverbial person on Fifth Avenue. Remember, even after Biden’s worst performance in the history of presidential debates, he didn’t drop much, because he was already on the floor of the basement. Things don’t get much lower than that in this new world order.

So what will happen? By all accounts, the attack on Iranian facilities seems to have been quite successful, and Iran’s response—so far, just halfhearted, unsuccessful missile attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Qatar—has been as muted as anyone could hope.

Prior to the attack, some had suggested that any U.S. involvement in the region’s hostilities could trigger a civil war within the MAGA movement. Prominent voices in the MAGA world, Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson to name just two, had been quite vociferous in their opposition to the U.S. getting engaged there. Central to Trump’s early appeal was indeed a backlash among some in the party to foreign adventures by previous Republican presidents. The wounds of Iraq and Afghanistan were still fresh, and there was plenty of residual scar tissue from Vietnam that fed into this rise of isolationism in the party.

In reality, such a civil war was never likely. The MAGA movement isn’t much larger than Trump himself. At this point, Trump is the sun in the GOP solar system; everything revolves around him. Within the party, he’s bigger than any issue.

A civil war is even less likely when the foreign interventionism in question goes well. As the saying goes, “victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.” In the wake of the attacks, it seems unlikely that any significant segment of the MAGA movement will challenge Trump’s paternity over this issue.

It remains unlikely that anything could happen at this point that would have a material effect on voters’ opinion of Trump, positive or negative. That ship has sailed.