Latest CNN Poll: Under-the-Radar Takeaways

Some interesting data from the poll you won’t read about anywhere else

The CNN poll, conducted by SSRS, that was released yesterday produced some unsurprising headline results.  It pretty much confirmed that Donald Trump is the front-runner, as he has been for months since they started the pre-primary polling.

However, there are some interesting tidbits that are worthy of note, even this far out from the primaries.

The number of people who have “no opinion” of Donald Trump has increased

In what might seem like an unfathomable result, the results of the poll, taken from Aug 25-31, 2023, showed that 7% of respondents have “no opinion” (not favorable or unfavorable) of the President.  This is a tick lower than the previous poll conducted in June of this year, but is an overall very high number for him, a world-wide household figure. This number tended to be reliably 4% or lower for the past 7 years, which would, of course, include his Presidency. As an aside, 1% said they have “Never heard of him”.  Probably a sampling anomaly, but still kind of funny.

How could this large of a percentage not have an opinion of this man at this time and place?  It could be a simple correlation, as the lowest favorability numbers correspond to the highest “no opinion” numbers, (33% vs 8% from June 13-17, 31% vs 9% on Dec 1-7, 2022).  But why this shift from previous numbers that were half the current one?  Could it mean something deeper?  And if so, what?

Hard to say for sure, but according to the breakdown of respondents, the younger and lower-income they were, the more likely they were to say “no opinion”. But this is the case historically in the poll, and doesn’t account for the increase in the number from previous polls.

Perhaps it’s because the more unhinged he behaves, which would supposedly decrease his favorability, the less people are comfortable even acknowledging him.  Maybe just enough people are literally afraid of him or his perceived minions, and don’t want to express an opinion on the record, regardless of how anonymous it is.  This seems a bit far-fetched at first, but I bet that if Trump were to ever win the Presidency again, you may see an uptick in favorability and/or “no opinion” strictly due to fear, an effect that occurs in totalitarian regimes like Russia.

Admittedly, this could be completely insignificant, or due to an age shift in respondents over the past few years (new people turning 18, and therefore newly included in the sample, that may not have been paying attention; and new people turning 35, putting them in a new older age category, that have been paying attention), but it’s a large enough change from before that it’s notable, if only because of the domination Trump has over continuous news cycles.

A surprising number of people have not heard of Special Prosecutor Jack Smith

Another interesting takeaway that seems implausible at first is that 46% of respondents have not heard of Jack Smith. In addition, 20% have “no opinion” of him.

Again, the younger and lower-income dominate this number (66% of ages 18-34, and 47% of those making less then $50k/year), but even a majority of ages 35-49 (52%) said they never heard of him.

This is both depressing and refreshing at the same time.  It shows how few people follow the news and may be alarmingly uninformed.  On the other hand, it seems to indicate there’s room for persuasion.  As a news junkie myself, I’d like to think most people are paying attention and have many of the details of the multiple cases against Trump and his co-defendants memorized, due simply to the saturation of the coverage of these events.

But that’s not the case, apparently.  Most people have busy lives outside of the news cycle, and aren’t paying particularly close attention.  This does imply that there’s room to work with among much of the population, and that these cases and upcoming trials may slowly eat away at the fervor behind the MAGA brand, once they start digesting the evidence against Trump.

The number of people saying they will only support Donald Trump is increasing, but overall support may be waning

How is this possible?  Well, avid Trump supporters are pretty solid and actually increasing in number from before.  But the number of people that have Trump in their top two is decreasing.

52% of respondents say they will vote for Trump as their first choice, and 65% overall say they would not change their minds from their first choice (this overall first-choice figure includes all candidates, not just Trump).  This is up from 47% and 59% in June, respectively.  So more people seem to be locking Trump into their first choice.

But 63% said they have Trump as their first or second choice, which is up slightly from June, but down rather significantly from May, when it was 68%.

This shows that while Trump is solidifying his first place standing at this time —perhaps due to a circling-the-wagon effect from the indictments — his overall standing is actually decreasing rather significantly.

The number of Republicans seriously concerned about Trump’s ability to win the 2024 general election is surprisingly high.

At a rate of 44%, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are seriously concerned about Trump’s ability to win the 2024 general election.  This seems pretty significant for a guy leading the field by so much at this time. On the other hand, this can be seen as an appropriate inverse number to the people that have Trump as their first choice.

Also surprising is the other two things this group is also seriously concerned about:  1) His ability to serve another full term as president if elected (32%); and 2) His ability to be an effective president while facing criminal charges (35%).

This indicates a significant squeamishness in his supporters that I wouldn’t necessarily think would be there, given his perceived strength as the #1 choice.  It appears that not everyone in the Republican or Republican-leaning group is in a “cult”, since if they were they would have few to no doubts about their fearless leader.

Maybe there will be some rational acting on the part of the Republican voters come primary time.  If they think that Trump will have problems being effective and even serving another full term, why would they vote for him to be the nominee?

All interesting questions with no direct answers at this time.  I will be keeping an eye on how and if these numbers shift in the coming months as Trump’s trials and pre-trial news cycles take shape.