Pollster Emily Ekins said on Friday that, based solely on the state of the economy, President Trump
Donald John TrumpThe Hill's Campaign Report: Democratic field begins to shrink ahead of critical stretch To ward off recession, Trump should keep his mouth and smartphone shut Trump: 'Who is our bigger enemy,' Fed chief or Chinese leader? MORE is underperforming in polls.
“What’s surprising about this is that the economy is actually doing pretty well. So he’s actually been underperforming what we would expect him to be doing, given the economy," Ekins, director of polling at the Cato Institute, told Hill.TV's Jamal Simmons on "What America's Thinking."
Ekins was referring to the latest American Barometer poll, in which 47 percent of voters said they approved of Trump's performance as president.
The Labor Department reported on Friday that the U.S. economy added 201,000 jobs in August and that the unemployment rate was 3.9 percent, a nearly 18-year low.
Election and polling analyst Henry Olsen told Simmons that Trump's poll numbers are not higher because people dislike him personally.
"We all know President Trump's personality, we all know his character, and there are people who find that offensive and find that distasteful, regardless of what's going on around them," said Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
"They may have great lives. They may be seeing larger paychecks. They may be living in peace and prosperity, but that man in the White House drives them nuts."
— Julia Manchester
