Daily Beast: “As Donald Trump entered his final week in office ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, and as several prominent members of Trump’s own party publicly turn on him, there’s one new area in which the outgoing president has found solace: polling. In recent days, some aides and close advisers to Trump have printed out and flagged for him a new set of surveys published by news organizations, polling groups, and one of Trump’s former top pollsters that show the president continues to maintain solid popularity among Republican voters and the base, according to two people familiar with the practice.”
“‘He’s asked for the numbers several times,’ one of the people said. ‘They’re still good and we believe they’ll go back up.’ This source said that Trump wanted the numbers promoted on Trump social media. The president himself can’t because he was banned from Twitter, his preferred Big Tech platform, late last week following wide condemnation over his role in inspiring his supporters to launch what became the bloody, anti-democratic riot on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Trump has said these demonstrate how his fans are still ‘with me’ and that elected Republicans and former top advisers who are backing away from him are wrong and ungrateful to do so, the sources said. In the days before the Jan. 6 riot, RealClear Politics and FiveThirtyEight averages of Trump’s approval rating showed disapproval of him hovering around a slim majority with his approval rating in the mid 40s. Since the riot, Trump’s overall approval rating has pushed disapproval rating above 60 percent in some polls. Morning Consult noted a ‘significant decline’ in support for Trump with a 60 percent overall disapproval rating and Marist found 51 percent of respondents now strongly disapproved of Trump’s handling of the country, the ‘first time a majority has held this view.'”