Thread by @xenocryptsite

Remember like two months ago when many people on here were saying Joe Biden's approval rating would be a stable +10 because something something polarization?

The Xenocrypt Policy of never predicting anything specific pays off yet again.

Now it's equally easy to say, oh it'll bounce back, or oh it'll be underwater forever. Why are people so confident about these things. Based on what.

Well I do think Trump's stable low approvals were some combination of the median voter never much liking him to begin with, plus polling issues. But you can't lose what you never had.

https://twitter.com/_Dinger_s/status/1440479234112188416?s=19

Most Presidents are, you know, popular when they're elected, so they have the approval of the median voter, so they can lose it. Of course you're more "stable" if you didn't really even start out with that.

The analogy might be, if Biden has unusually small midterm losses--because he had an unusually small number of seats for a trifecta to begin with.

Anyway I'm not saying Biden's approval rating won't go back up. Historically it does seem easier for approval to go down than up, but we're not exactly in normal times...on either side of things...

You know, maybe Delta will finally fade and we'll get that sweet hot economy and normalcy. Or maybe the Omega Variant will come along and destroy even the capacity of our brains to experience pleasure. (Twitter will look the same as it does now, hey-yooo.)

Well it is unlikely that "everyone hates both". It may be that the median voters do dislike both Biden and Republicans, in which case, much will depend on how they split, as has been the case before.

https://twitter.com/AubreyGilleran/status/1440485661279096841?s=19

It's a little under-appreciated that someone with 40-60 approval running against someone with 30-70 approval is in many ways in the same boat. They're both scrounging among the 30% (say) "disapprove of both". The 40-60 candidate needs fewer of them but may be some similarities...

As opposed to say, someone with 55-45 approval vs. someone with 45-55 approval. Same delta on their approvals, but the dynamics are probably a lot more different. Of course IDK if this actually has any historical meaning empirically, just musing.