U.S. president Donald Trump has a 42 percent approval rating among South Carolinians, while 50 percent of Palmetto State residents disapprove of the job the president is doing.
That’s according to the latest results from the Winthrop Poll, a survey which has come under fire in recent years due to its dubious findings.
Do we buy this data? No …
A month before the 2016 presidential election, Winthrop’s poll showed Trump leading Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by only four points in the Palmetto State – with libertarian nominee Gary Johnson getting six percent of the vote.
“Do we buy the Winthrop results?” we asked at the time. “Not really.”
We were right …
Trump wound up winning the state by a 55-41 percent margin – with Johnson drawing only two percent support.
Did the state swing that much in a month’s time? No … Winthrop’s data (like other #FakePolls) was simply way off the mark.
A far more accurate surveyor of Palmetto State sentiment? Robert Cahaly of the Atlanta-based Trafalgar Group. His numbers – especially among South Carolina voters – have been spot on in recent election cycles. Cahaly has also proven quite adept at needling Winthrop pollster Scott Huffmon on social media over the unreliability of the latter’s numbers.
Anyway … we’d love to delve into the rest of the latest Winthrop data, but we just don’t trust it enough to lend it that sort of credence.
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