Although Trump is quite unpopular, the political map hasn’t changed much in the eight months since Trump won (not surprisingly). Compared to his standing nationally, Trump is still strong in key swing states.2 He has, however, experienced a disproportionate drop off in his popularity in red states, suggesting the president’s base isn’t as solid as it once was. [...]
Trump’s continued popularity in the Midwest (relatively speaking) is important because (i) there are a ton of Electoral College votes in those states, and (ii) it shows that Democrats still have a problem there. That may also mean that Clinton didn’t lose the election because she was uniquely unpopular in key swing states. (She likely didn’t lose Wisconsin, for example, because she didn’t campaign there, as some have argued.) Trump may just have outsized appeal in the Midwest. Or perhaps the region — which used to lean slightly more Democratic than the nation as a whole — has simply become more Republican-leaning relative to the country. That trend could have little to do with Clinton or Trump. [...]
But even if this polling is perfect, Trump still might not have lost ground, per se. Trump was able to win in 2016 in large part because he was able to win a decent share of the vote among people who held an unfavorable view of him. That group of voters — we’ve dubbed them “Reluctant Trump voters” — may have been more plentiful in red states.6 In deeply red Kentucky, for example, Trump lost among people who held an unfavorable view of him by just 40 percentage points. In deeply blue California, he lost this same group by 74 points.
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