April 15, 2018

Donald Trump Really Wants You to Know How Well He’s Doing in One Specific Poll

Congratulations?

Susan Walsh/AP

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Donald Trump isn’t a very popular president. According to the FiveThirtyEight polling average, his approval rating is currently around 41 percent. That’s about 7 points below where Barack Obama was at this stage of his presidency.

But Trump isn’t interested in polling averages. On Sunday morning—on the tail end of a truly unhinged Twitter tirade against James Comey—the president trumpeted his standing in one specific poll.

Obviously, there’s nothing particularly unusual about a politician cherry-picking data to make himself look better. But what is striking is just how often Trump has celebrated his standing in the Rasmussen survey—a poll that has tended to give him higher approval ratings than most other public polls have. Here’s Trump earlier this month:

And here he is last month:

And in February:

And last June:

Congratulations, Mr. President!

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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