‘Trump Can’t Escape Political Gravity’: 3 Writers on Trump’s Polling

Frank Bruni, a contributing Opinion writer, hosted a written online conversation with Kristen Soltis Anderson, a contributing Opinion writer and Republican pollster, and Nate Silver, the author of “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything” and the newsletter Silver Bulletin, to explore what polls say about the opening months of President Trump’s action-filled second term.

Frank Bruni: Kristen, Nate, thanks for joining me and helping readers and me understand Americans’ reviews of Donald Trump’s presidency so far. I’m confused, but that’s pretty much my default setting. As Trump approached 100 days, he saw a steep decline in his approval rating, with numbers unusually low for an American president in his first months. But they were still within the normal range for Trump — despite the autocratic orders, the tariff roulette, Elon Musk. And then, over the past two weeks, an uptick, so that the average of recent polls gives Trump an approval-disapproval split of about 45 percent to 51 percent. All said, should he and his allies be panicked, mildly concerned or vaguely reassured by the whole of it and by where he is now?