CNN’s Harry Enten is something of an anomaly at the ol’ Chicken Noodle News network (hey, just bringing back those ’80s gags, for a retro vibe). Sure, he’s as Trump-deranged as Don Lemon chugging Rachel Maddow’s tears to impress Rosie O’Donnell, in the wholly understandably mistaken belief that she’s an old, white dude. But Enten’s whole ‘thing’ is polls – data. Which means that, in a radical move for CNN, he has to pretty much tell the truth.
Such as that Trump’s polling is nowhere near as bad as the chattering left have convinced themselves. Not even after three weeks of government shutdown
The government shutdown isn’t hurting President Donald Trump where it matters to him most, according to CNN’s data guru.
Harry Enten said the president’s net approval rating went up by a point even as the shutdown dragged into its 20th day on Monday, reversing his fortunes during the 35-day standoff in his first term.
This is significant, firstly, because previous shutdowns have badly hurt the incumbent. Obama’s approval, already on the slide through 2013, dropped precipitously during that year’s government shutdown. In 1995–96, Clinton was similarly mauled by a government shutdown. Even the 2018 shutdown hurt Trump in his first term.
But things are starkly different the second time around, as Democrats and Republicans remain at an impasse over the extension of healthcare subsidies expiring at the end of the year.
“The bottom line is this: The first shutdown during Trump’s first term, 2018–2019 was hurting Donald Trump,” Enten said. “This one is not hurting him at all. There’s no real reason Donald Trump might say, at least when it comes to popular support, ‘I want to get out of this shutdown.’”
Where voters in 2018 largely blamed Trump for that year’s shutdown (61 per cent), less than half blame him this time around. Probably because they link the shutdown, at least in part, to Democrat efforts to provide taxpayer-funded healthcare free to illegal immigrants. Americans are already solidly in favour of Trump’s deporting illegal immigrants. Democrats, on the other hand want to shower them with free healthcare that is denied to US citizens.
What’s even more significant about these polls is that they offer a brutal corrective to Democrats’ dreams of recapturing the House or Senate during the midterms.
The data guru said that Republicans’ approval on many key issues has either held steady or improved since 2022, when the GOP gained eight seats in the House during the last midterms.
“I think this kind of gives away the game right here, OK?” Enten said. “The GOP is more trusted than the Dems on the economy. It was 12 points in 2022. Slight, slight decline in that lead, but still seven points. How about immigration? It was Republicans by three back in 2022. Look at this! The Republican lead has actually gone up by 10 points. What are you doing, Democrats? My goodness gracious.”
Enten then noted that Republicans’ lead on crime has climbed from +13 points to +22.
“The lead again expanding by nearly double digits,” he said of crime polling. “So whatever Democrats are doing, it ain’t working.”
Still, Enten insists that there is some hope for the party. Which sounds more like CNN talking, than the data.
Because, not just the Congressional Republicans’ fortunes are looking up, but so are Trump’s. His numbers may not be as high as other presidents’, but they’re nowhere near as low, either.
That’s the key point: Trump’s numbers are remarkably steady – steadier than any other American president. And that’s all he needs.
A majority of voters, 52 per cent, believe that Trump is fulfilling what he promised throughout his 2024 campaign, prompting him to currently have a 43 per cent approval rating, Enten said while citing his aggregate data. The voters expected Trump to secure the border, bring down inflation and address crime, which have caused his favorability rating to remain steady.
“Donald Trump is who the voters thought he was,” Enten said. “What are we talking about here, well, ‘Is Trump doing what he promised?’ in the 2024 campaign? Yes! 52 per cent, a majority of Americans say that Donald Trump is doing what he promised, compared to 48 per cent who said no. So what essentially is going on here is the voters expected all of this from Donald Trump. The majority did, and that’s why his favorability ratings simply has not really moved all that much compared to where it was a year ago.”
This means his polls numbers are much the same as those which got him elected in such emphatic fashion, last year.
“In reality, what we’re really seeing is that the American public is pretty much steady,” Enten said. “They pretty much were where they were a year ago at this point. Maybe Democrats can take control of the House where the polling is right now, but maybe not. Because the bottom line is, we’ve seen numbers fairly similar to what we have right now. We had it a year ago and it wasn’t enough for Democrats to take control. The bottom line is this, if Donald Trump is where he is, Republicans will in fact remain competitive if they in fact gain a little bit, it really would not be that surprising to me if Republicans were able to maintain control of the House.”
And Trump just keeps delivering on what Americans elected him for: over 300,000 illegal immigrants have been arrested. Inflation has dropped to a four-year low. Crime is plunging in Washington since Trump’s federal takeover and the deployment of the National Guard. If the same pattern follows in big Democrat cities like Memphis, Chicago and Portland, the anticipated ‘blue wave’ will barely get Trump’s toes wet.
