Under Trump, GOP Rises to Highest Approval Rating in Nearly a Decade

With President Donald J. Trump at the helm of the Republican Party, the GOP has risen to its highest approval rating in nearly a decade, a new Gallup survey found.

GOP favorability, at 45 percent, is higher than Democrats’ 44 percent. Gallup says the surge in Republicans’ support level–a nine percent rise among the public since last September–is the highest rating the party has had since when the GOP took the House majority it still maintains, in January 2011, after the 2010 midterm elections. Back then, in January 2011, Republicans had a 47 percent approval rating but have slipped below 45 percent ever since. That means the GOP, under Trump, has surged to its highest approval rating in seven years. Gallup’s Jim Norman wrote:

The parity in Republicans’ and Democrats’ favorable ratings marks a change from what has generally been the case since Barack Obama’s election as president in November 2008. Republicans have usually been rated less positively than Democrats over this time, with the Republican Party’s favorability rating for the last decade averaging 39%, compared with the Democratic Party’s 44%. Only one other time in the last decade has the Republican Party had a significantly higher score than the Democratic Party. That one exception came in November 2014, immediately after elections that saw Republicans capture control of the Senate and expand their majority in the House, when 42% rated the GOP favorably and 36% the Democrats.

A rise in intra-GOP approval is a big reason why the GOP has now surpassed Democrats in overall approval, just two months before the election, in the Gallup survey. Donald Trump, Jr., President Trump’s eldest son, told Breitbart News that the reason for the rise inside the party is because Republicans finally have a leader they can count on.

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