Coming back to revisit Trump’s position on the Dreamers (DACA) and his tentative agreement with the Democrats – has it destroyed him in the polls? Nope:
Of course, this simple poll aggregates all of the issues and therefore could conceal important changes in the composition of his support. For example, perhaps his core was badly damaged by his association with the Democrats, but enough Democrats or Independents approve of it to more than make up for the damage to his core. NBC News and the Wall Street Journal did a poll specifically on DACA, which is interesting if unsurprising:
We can see there’s a basically humane center to most of America when it comes to people brought to the United States before they could make their own decisions. Only among Trump supporters does opposition to giving them a reprieve approach 50%, and given the misinformation on which that group often seems to operate, one has to wonder how that would change if they were given more accurate information or not[1].
Whether this can be applied to my speculations is unclear.
But the first poll certainly indicates Trump’s move on DACA has not further damaged the Trump Administration’s reputation on an overall basis; it may have improved it. And if the core splits over this question, then Trump is necessarily moving off his core into the sea of independents, who are necessarily less than dependable for unquestioning support. As Trump continues to blunder along as the permanent amateur, one has to wonder how long before the independents abandon him.
1I do wish the poll numbers had included what percentage of the total poll each of the groups made up.
