Democratic strategist James Carville disclosed during a Thursday podcast that his “only hope” for countering President Donald Trump’s administration is that Americans will turn on it — but the president currently enjoys strong support.
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten said Tuesday that the percentage of Americans who believe the nation is “on the right track” has surged under Trump and that his net approval rating is also near its peak. However, in response to a listener question on “Politics War Room” about whether he currently worries “more about the crazies” than during other points of his career, Carville said he was uncertain, but that he believes “the public” may already be solving the “dire situation” in which the country finds itself under Trump.
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“I’m worried about the future of the United States, and I’m not exactly sure how we can deal with this, but deal with it we’re going to have to,” Carville said. “That said, it’s a good question and I struggle with the answer … In Trump One, we had some non-crazy people of which he made sure we weren’t going to repeat that.”
“It’s a dire situation. And my only hope is, and I think it might be happening, is the public is going to have to solve this for us,” he added.
A survey by Marist, published March 3, showed 45% of Americans believe the U.S. is on the correct path, which Enten said was the second-highest that the survey research center has recorded since 2009. An NBC News poll released March 16 found that 44% shared the identical feeling, which Enten said was the best on record since 2004.
“The bottom line is the percentage of Americans who say we’re on the right track is through the roof. And if you were to compare it to when presidents have historically been reelected — of course Trump is not constitutionally eligible to run for reelection, but I think it sort of puts it in perspective — 42% of the country says the country is on the right track when the incumbent party is reelected,” Enten said. “And also keep in mind, back when [former Vice President] Kamala Harris lost and the Democrats were turned out of power, only about 27 to 28% of the country said the country was on the right track.”
Enten also used his own aggregate of polling to show Trump’s popularity is better than it has historically been.
“All we talk about is how unpopular Donald Trump is. But in reality, he’s basically more popular than he was at any point in term number one and more popular than he was when he won election back in November of 2024,” the data analyst said. “What are we talking about? His net favorable rating right now comes in at minus four points. Compare that to where he was when he won in November of 2024, when he was at minus seven points, or in March of 2017 when he was at minus 10 points.”
“So when you compare Trump against himself, he’s actually closer to the apex than he is to the bottom of the trough,” he added. “And of course, that’s so important because Donald Trump, historically speaking, has had his numbers underestimated.”
Furthermore, the NBC News poll showed Trump’s approval rating matching its highest point across both of his terms at 47%. The majority of voters, 52%, also asserted they approve of the president’s job performance, while just 46% said they disapprove, according to Rasmussen Reports’ “Presidential Tracking” poll.
However, Democratic East Petersburg Borough Mayor James Andrew Malone narrowly won a Pennsylvania State Senate special election on Tuesday in Lancaster County in a district Trump carried by 15% in November, The New York Times reported.
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