The New York Times obtained President Donald Trump's E-score, "a number compiled by E-Poll Market Research that is not publicly available, but which marketing executives, network television stations and advertisers rely on to figure out which personalities appeal to audiences — and which do not."
The results were not kind.
The E-Score, the publication notes, "calculates awareness and appeal of individuals in the public eye," and also "tracks how individuals score on more than 40 personality and physical attributes." According to Trump's scores from December, he scored high marks for being aggressive” (48 percent) as well as "mean" (38 percent). “Insincere,” “confident” and “creepy" are also high on the list. He scored between zero and four percent for the attributes “sexy,” “impartial,” “handsome” and “physically fit.”
29 percent described the president as "overexposed." His overall "positive appeal" stands at 14 percent while his overall "negative appeal" stands at 39 percent.
Trump is most popular with individuals over the age of 55 and is consistently more popular with men across all age groups.
The president is known to be obsessive about his approval ratings. That he's so unpopular is a surprise to no one.
E-Poll Market Research offers an annual subscription of at least $17,000 to marketing, advertising and entertainment executives who wish to access information on the marketing effectiveness of the more than 10,000 people compiled in its database. The company surveys about 1,100 online participants every week and has tracked Trump since he appeared on NBC's The Apprentice.
Other members of the Trump administration have also received E-scores, including:
- Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and adviser, who has about 70 percent name recognition and 47 percent facial recognition, according to data compiled in December. She is more popular with men across all age groups and is least popular with adults between the ages of 18 and 24. She scored highest for the attributes of “attractive” (32 percent), “beautiful” (28 percent) and “glamorous” (25 percent) and lowest for the attributes of “funny” (1 percent), “can identify with” (2 percent) and “exciting” (3 percent).
- Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and adviser, who has about 35 percent name recognition, according to data compiled in May. Kushner scored highest for the attributes of “insincere” (29 percent), “creepy” (27 percent) and “overexposed” (22 percent). He scored lowest for the attributes of “exciting,” “glamorous” and “emotional" (1 percent).
- Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, who is tied with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the press secretary, with about 37 percent name recognition. Conway's data was compiled in May; Sanders's data was compiled in December. Both women scored 32 percent on facial recognition. Conway has a "strong positive appeal of 9 percent and a strong negative appeal of 43 percent" compared to Sanders, who has "a strong positive appeal of 19 percent and a strong negative appeal of 28 percent."
The president's current job approval rating is about 42.1 percent and his disapproval rating is 52.8 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s approval rating tracker, and he has not seen a bump in the wake of the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report.
As Bloomberg points out:
Here’s why that’s bad news for Trump. His approval rating is the second-worst of any president on record after 801 days in office, which is where Trump was on Sunday. Only Ronald Reagan, at 41.1 percent, was worse. Trump is dead last in disapproval rating. No other president was over 50 percent. He’s also last in net approval (that is, approval minus disapproval) at -10.7.Trump’s numbers have been unusually steady. His poor rating, and his low ranking among the 13 presidents of the polling era, isn’t a temporary fluke caused by recent bad news. It’s just where he always is. He’s been net negative since the earliest days of his presidency, and his disapproval has been over 50 percent for two years now. In fact, he’s been last in disapproval for all but about a month of his presidency.
The president also appears to be treading water in a key battleground state, according to a recent poll out of Emerson College. The poll found that former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) hold double-digit leads over Trump in a hypothetical 2020 White House matchup in the state of Pennsylvania.
Both men gained 55 percent of the vote in a general election matchup with the president. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Representative Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) round out the top five. Biden also held the lead when respondents were asked who they’d vote for in the Democratic primary.
“Sanders in this year’s state polling is consistently keeping between 35% to 60% of his vote from 2016, suggesting he has a strong base of supporters to work with,” said Spencer Kimball, Director of the Emerson Poll.
Kimball added: “Mayor Pete has performed well for our third poll in a row, indicating an increase in support for the South Bend Mayor, though Pennsylvania looks like it could be a Joe Biden firewall.”
Only 41 percent of the survey’s respondents said they approve of the president’s job performance, and 55 percent said they are “not likely” to vote for the president in 2020.
Emerson College surveyed 808 registered voters in the state between March 26-28 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
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