Donald Trump bottoms out

| 7:00 pm EST December 17, 2022
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Back when Donald Trump first left office, polling showed barely more than half of Republican 2024 primary voters wanted him to be their party’s nominee. This was devastatingly bad for him, given the name recognition and de facto incumbency advantage he had at the time over any other potential Republican 2024 candidates. Over the past two years, Trump’s only hope was if his numbers improved – but they never did. These days, polling says that less than half of Republican 2024 primary voters want Trump to be their nominee.

Now Trump has bad news when it comes to a different kind of number. His overall favorability rating has been consistently poor since he left office. One new poll from Quinnipiac has Trump’s favorability at just 31%. This is the part where the defeatists on our side begin angrily yelling about how it should be zero (they’re right, but that’s not how anything works). In reality, 31% is the lowest favorability number that Trump has ever had in this particular poll, going all the way back to 2015.

Other favorability polls are still a bit more charitable to Trump. FiveThirtyEight has his average in the mid to high thirties. But that’s still terrible for Trump, and his average is getting worse of late. In other words, Trump didn’t get a bump from announcing his 2024 faux-campaign, he actually got a dip from it. And in the one poll he’s completely bottoming out.

It seems absurd to even have to address this, but for those wondering, the latest Trump favorability polling was conducted before he promised a “major announcement” and then merely rolled out trading cards. We’re guessing this kind of nonsense will only drive his numbers even lower. And of course this is all before he gets indicted and hauled away, which we suspect will drive his numbers even lower than that. Look out below!