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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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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