The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

I'd say roughly 9 out of 10 times, I think Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checker Politifact gets their grades right. When they get something wrong, though, they should be called out like everyone else. That's the case with a very recent article of theirs, written by Amy Sherman and titled "Story says poll shows Trump tied to Obama at same point in presidency." The fact-check is actually in response to an article posted at the far-right website, The Gateway Pundit , where the headline reads, "Trump approval rating better than Obama and Reagan at same point in their presidencies." The article then goes on to cherry-pick two conservative-leaning pollsters, Rasmussen and Fox News. To my surprise, Politifact then went on to give this claim a "Mostly True" grade. If one were to check the polling breakdown courtesy of RealClearPolitics , they'd quickly see Politifact was off with this grade. At this point in Barack Obama's first term as presid...

Due to a new Monmouth poll that was released yesterday, Democrats are claiming the world is going to end, while Republicans are claiming their party has been saved. Let's all stand back, take a deep breath, and try to see the larger picture. Monmouth, which is a reputable pollster, showed Donald Trump's approval rating jumping 10 points from 32% to 42% in the past month. Trump's approval average on RealClearPolitics is 41.5%, so it's not as though Monmouth's latest poll is some kind of crazed outlier. That's not the case when it comes to their findings on the Generic Congressional Vote, however. The Monmouth poll suggests that Republicans have narrowed the gap to 2 points. In the 11 other most recently taken polls regarding the subject, that gap is an average of 8 points. So it remains to be seen if Democrats truly have anything to worry about with regard to the midterm elections. When it comes to Donald Trump's approval rating, however, let's dig a litt...