Pliny's Point on August 21, 2017

About Pliny's Point

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By Ballotpedia Staff

August 21, 2017: An average of recent polls shows a 39 percent approval rating for President Donald Trump, up one point since last week. Individual poll results range from 32 to 44 percent in favor of how the president is handling his job.

Source	Date range	Sample size	Job approval rating	Margin of error (+/-)
Gallup	8/15 - 8/17	1,500 adults	38%	3%
Rasmussen Reports	8/15 - 8/17	1,500 likely voters	42%	2.5%
Quinnipiac University	8/9 - 8/15	1,361 registered voters	39%	3.4%
Economist/YouGov	8/13 - 8/15	1,291 registered voters	42%	3.2%
Reuters/Ipsos	8/11 - 8/15	1,587 adults	35%	2.8%
Politico/Morning Consult	8/10 - 8/14	1,997 registered voters	44%	2%
CBS News	8/3 - 8/6	1,111 adults	36%	4%
IBD/TIPP	7/28 - 8/5	904 adults	32%	3.3%

A study by FiveThirtyEight found that variances in polls about President Trump's favorability stemmed primarily from the collection method. Polls of registered or likely voters tended to be more favorable to Trump than those that polled adults generally. Automated or online polls also resulted in more favorable rankings than those conducted with live phone calls. The data for these findings was taken from polls conducted between Feb. 1 and Feb. 19, 2017. For more on the types of polling methods used in Ballotpedia's polling averages, see Pliny's Point polling methodology.

Methodology

For Ballotpedia's presidential approval, congressional approval, and direction of the country polling results, we take an average of the most recent polls on one or more of these topics conducted by 12 sources. Polls may be included in the average for up to 30 days, though this timeline may be adjusted to account for major news events as we attempt to balance the need for a larger sample of results with the need to remove outdated information. For a full description of our methodology and polling explanations, see: Ballotpedia's Polling Indexes.

What's in a name?

Pliny the Elder, a scholar from the Roman Empire, is most well known for writing the encyclopedic work Naturalis Historia, or “Natural History.” His extremely thorough work covered everything from botany to technology. Naturalis Historia, one of the largest Roman works that still exists from the first century A.D., became an example for future encyclopedic works through its formatting, references, and comprehensiveness.

Today, Ballotpedia works to preserve and expand knowledge, just like Pliny did hundreds of years ago. One of the features of Ballotpedia, the encyclopedia of American politics, was a daily statistic called Pliny’s Point. Each day, between January 20, 2017 and September 1, 2017, readers learned where Americans stood on the direction of the country, or their approval of elected officials.

Click here for more Pliny's Point articles.

See also

• Pliny's Point

Ballotpedia daily polling averages:

• Presidential approval
• Congressional approval
• Direction of country

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