A recent Gallup poll [1] has found First Lady Melania Trump’s favorability rating remains at 47 percent, although her unfavorable rating increased by seven points to 43 percent after her speech at the Republican National Convention last month, CNN [2] reports.
It’s interesting that her favorability rating hasn’t changed much since the last time the poll was taken in April, considering the fact that she’s made a hash [3] out of the White House Rose Garden and wore an outfit during her speech at the RNC that resembled [4] a Nazi uniform. You’d think things like that would turn voter off. I hope so anyway.
While Melania typically keeps a low profile, she’s doing more of this in keeping with coronavirus restrictions and advised guidelines, her spokeswoman said. The highest favorability rating she’s achieved occurred in October 2018, when a CNN poll [5] gave her a 54 percent rating.
With the presidential election 45 days away, [6] you’d think she’d be out there stumping for her over-priced/over-rated/over-inflated sugar daddy, but nope. She’s kicking it at the White House, having only made the aforementioned RNC speech in front of the destroyed rose garden.
While President Donald Trump and three of his kids — Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric — have hit the campaign trail, Melania apparently has no such plans to do this and there are no planned fundraising events on the horizon, said one person familiar with the First Lady’s schedule. This is more or less a repeat of 2016 when Melania mostly kept to New York City to look after the couple’s son, Barron, who was 10 years old at the time.
So Melania’s diverging from the beaten path here because it’s a typical campaign strategy for spouses of incumbents or candidates to hit the trail because they make things seem more homespun, offering up stories of what the candidates are like around home and family.
Laura Bush and Michelle Obama did this to great effect, pulling in millions of people to their husband’s respective campaigns and attracting thousands of people along the way.
There are some who’d like to see her step up.
“The area where Melania Trump can have the most impact with the campaign is with rallying base supporters, whether that’s through fundraising appeals or get-out-the-vote appeals in the home stretch,” said Kevin Madden, a former adviser for the Mitt Romney and George W. Bush presidential campaigns. “Every effort to secure the base will be valuable in some of these battleground states that could be close.”
Melania has made a couple of recent pit stops to New Hampshire, visiting a hospital in Concord that specializes caring for infants born with opioid dependencies, and a fire station that helps addicts experiencing medical issues stemming from drug use.
Jill Biden, however, has spent the last several months traveling either in person or virtually to dozens of campaign events, and it shows. Her favorability rating in the same Gallup poll is higher than Melania Trump’s, at 49 percent. But it’s her unfavorability rating that show’s the largest difference and stands at 27 percent.
It’s anyone’s guess as to how this will play out, and Madden says whatever the Melania Trump or Jill Biden do may not make a huge difference.
“The broader presidential race is being shaped by very big forces at play, with a pandemic, the economic disruption that has resulted from it and social unrest framing the choice between the two candidates,” he said. “As a result, even popular surrogates like the first lady will have a minimal impact on voters and how they view the choice between the candidates.”
Here’s where I’m going to tell you that if you’re still on the fence about whether to vote for Biden or Trump, ask yourself who’s most responsible for the pandemic’s economic disruption in the U.S. and who’s largely responsible for the social unrest in the U.S.
I think you already know the answers.