Donald Trump was fuming on Saturday morning not because a deadly virus has taken nearly 90,000 American lives, but because governors are getting better approval ratings than he is for their response to the pandemic.
In a tweet, the unhinged president said, “We’ve done a GREAT job on Covid response, making all Governors look good, some fantastic (and that’s OK), but the Lamestream Media doesn’t want to go with that narrative, and the Do Nothing Dems talking point is to say only bad about ‘Trump’.”
He added, “I made everybody look good, but me!”
We’ve done a GREAT job on Covid response, making all Governors look good, some fantastic (and that’s OK), but the Lamestream Media doesn’t want to go with that narrative, and the Do Nothing Dems talking point is to say only bad about “Trumpâ€. I made everybody look good, but me!
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— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2020
All 50 governors have higher coronavirus ratings than Trump
As The Hill reported at the end of last month, “A sweeping survey of more than 22,000 voters in all 50 states found that most say their governor is doing a better job than President Trump in handling the coronavirus outbreak.”
In every state in the union, residents approve of their own governor’s handling of the COVID crisis (defined as “approve†or “strongly approveâ€) more highly than they rate that of President Trump. The average gap across the 50 states was 22 percentage points (66 for governors compared to 44% for Trump). That said, the gaps between the governor and the president vary widely, ranging from around 2 percentage points in Oklahoma to a cavernous gap approaching or exceeding 40 points in several solidly Democratic states, like Rhode Island and California.
Overall, public approval of the president’s coronavirus response stands at less than 43 percent, while over 53 percent disapprove, according to RealClearPolitics.
Perhaps if Trump, like most governors in both parties, spent his time getting a handle of this virus – something of which he still seems incapable – instead of shouting “me me me me” on Twitter, his ratings would be higher than they are.
But given what we know about Donald Trump, that seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
