Polls during a crisis

Was listening to a Five Thirty Eight podcast on why Trump’s approval rating has risen, despite his incredibly muddled response to the Covid-19 crisis. Their conclusion was that when countries face a crisis, there is always a rush of support towards the government of the day as patriotism trumps politics. You saw this in the US after 9/11 and we are seeing it with the Covid-19 crisis. However Trump’s bounce is far less than in other countries.

In Australia Scott Morrison has gone from a -20% net approval rating in the February Newspoll to a +26% rating in the April Newspoll.

In the UK Boris Johnson has gone from a +6% rating in March Opinium to a +29% in April.

Even in the US, Donald Trump is seeing his approval rating increase, despite a pretty terrible actual response to the crisis. Gallup had him at -9% in January and at +4% in March. That’s a reasonable increase but of course dwarfed by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo who has gone from a net 0% approval in December 2019 to a huge +48% in March 2020.

In fact many US Governors have seen a huge spike in approval, as you can see here.

Many heads of governments are also getting good ratings specifically for their response to Covid-19. The percentage who approve of their response is Angela Merkel 75%, Boris Johnson 70%, Justin Trudeau 64%.

So even the most incompetent head of government tends to get an increase in their approval ratings during a crisis, while those who handle it competently get a massive increase.

There’s quite a bit of carping in NZ about Scott Morrison, but his net approval has shot up 46%.

So there should be no doubt that while the crisis is ongoing, incumbents do well in the polls. This is natural and expected. The more important question is how long does it last for.