President Trump's approval rating among five key voter groups shows how tough it will be for Republicans to keep control of the House in the midterm elections.
Data: SurveyMonkey online poll among a total sample of 52,211. Margin of error of ±1.5 percentage points. Poll methodology; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios
The bottom line: The most important group to watch will be the #NeverHillary independents — a group that narrowly disapproves of Trump's performance, according to a new Axios-SurveyMonkey poll. It's also not a good sign for Republicans that Trump's disapproval ratings are high among suburban white women. The other subgroups lean pretty much the way you'd expect.
What to watch: We'll be revisiting these groups and their views on different topics each week in the run-up to November's votes.
The 2018 voter groups:
#NeverHillary Independents are closely split on their views of Trump, and in 2016 they split three ways: 37% didn't vote at all, 33% picked Trump and 23% went for a third party candidate. The big question in 2018 is whether their disapproval of Trump will lead them to vote for a Democrat.
Suburban white women are a critical swing voter group. Nearly half strongly disapprove of Trump, but they're almost evenly divided between Democrats (44%) and Republicans (42%). They are mostly moderate or conservative in their views, but they care a lot about health care and immigration — two of the biggest issues that are likely to drive Democrats to the polls.
Rural Americans are overwhelmingly white (76%), and many love Trump (38% strongly approve). They care most about jobs and the economy, but if Republicans want their help, they'll have to address the concerns of the 42% who disapprove of Trump.
African-American women are often called the backbone of the Democratic Party, and not surprisingly, they overwhelmingly disapprove of President Trump. Two out of three voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. But if Democrats want their vote in 2018, the party will need to invest in the issues they care about.
Millennials (18-34) don't like Trump, and they are more likely to mention education and the environment over issues like health care and immigration. In 2016, 31% voted for Clinton and 19% voted for Trump, but 39% stayed home. If Democrats want to win them over, they'll need to focus on voter registration — because millennials are the least likely group to report being registered to vote.
Methodology: This analysis is based onSurveyMonkeyonline surveys conducted between June 19 and July 20 among 52,211 adults in the United States. Results for congressional vote preference and for subgroups based on self-reported rural, suburban or urban status are from interviews conducted July 1-13 among 9,767 adults nationwide. The modeled error estimate for the subgroups ranges between plus or minus 1.5 percentage points and plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Respondents for thissurveywere selected from the more than 2 million people who take surveys on theSurveyMonkeyplatform each day. Data have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau’s American CommunitySurveyto reflect the demographic composition of the United States age 18 and over. Crosstabs availablehere.
We told you yesterdaywhy elected Republicans go so silent so quickly when they disagree so strongly with President Trump: They fear it's political suicide to speak up. Now we have an exclusive, new Axios/SurveyMonkey poll that shows why those fears are real.
Data: SurveyMonkey online poll conducted July 16-17, 2018 among a total sample of 2,100 adults living in the United States. Margin of error of ±3 percentage points; Poll methodology; Chart: Lazaro Gamio/Axios
Be smart: This poll foreshadows the coming national drama. Every piece of data, and virtually every public action of elected Republican officials, shows Trump will have overwhelming and probably unbreakable party support, regardless of what Robert Mueller finds with his Russia probe.
Americans are split on whether the allegations of Russian interference are a serious issue (50%) or a distraction (47%). This breaks cleanly along party lines, with 85 percent of Republicans seeing it as a distraction and 85 percent of Democrats seeing it as a serious issue. Among Independents, 56 percent see it as a serious issue.
More than half of Americans (55%) don't trust the Trump administration to take steps to prevent foreign interference in November's midterms.
View the full demographic breakdown of the poll here.
A majority of Americans approve of President Trump's handling of the economy for the first time, according to CNBC's All-America Economic Survey, which has tracked the number since he first took office.
Why it matters: Confidence in Trump's handling of the economy seems to be tied to his overall approval ratings, which could be good news for Republicans ahead of the 2018 midterms.
There are more Americans who believe the economy is excellent than there are those who believe it is poor for the first time in the 10-year history of the survey.
A huge gap in Trump's economic approval and overall approval exists for non-white Americans: 39% approve of his job with the economy, but only 23% approve of his performance as president.
Trump's overall disapproval rating has reached a record low: 47%.
51% of Americans disapprove of Trump's immigration policies — unchanged from last quarter and last year, despite the controversy over family separations dominating the news during the polling.
Yes, but: Only 25%of those surveyed credit Trump directly for the healthy economy — however, only 3% credit Republicans in Congress.
