According to a Tennessee Star poll of 1001 likely Tennessee Republican primary voters, former President Donald J. Trump has all-time high approval rating among the GOP in the state, more than two months after leaving office.
The poll found that 89.7 percent of those voters have a favorable impression of the 45th president, compared to 7.4 percent who view him unfavorably.
The poll was conducted between March 5 and March 10 for The Tennessee Star by Triton Research.
The Star has run two similar polls in the past.
A poll conducted in December of 2017 of 1028 likely Republican voters in the state showed that Trump’s favorability rating was 84 percent. Another poll conducted in June of 2018 showed that Trump’s favorability rating was 86.5 percent among 1040 likely Republican primary voters.
Trump’s record-setting 89.7 percent favorability rating in this year’s March poll shows that he is viewed 3.2 percent more favorably than he was in 2018 among the same group of voters, which is outside of the 2021 poll’s 2.9 percent margin of error.
Despite not holding office, Trump was viewed more favorably than any other politician polled by The Star.
Gov. Bill Lee (R) has a 69.9 percent favorability rating, compared to 13.4 percent of likely Republican primary voters who view him unfavorably. Also, 12.4 percent of respondents said they had no opinion or hadn’t heard of Lee.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) had favorability numbers close to Lee’s, coming in at 72.2 percent. But far more likely Republican voters viewed her as unfavorable, compared to Lee. According to the poll, 19.2 percent of respondents viewed her unfavorably.
Blackburn stirred controversy when she bashed then-President Trump for his January phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), after The Washington Post reported that he asked Raffensperger to find enough votes for him to win Georgia in the 2020 presidential election. Monday, The Post corrected that story, retracting that accusation after the audio of the call was released, and showed that Trump did not pressure Raffensperger to find votes.
The Star has run several polls in the past with great accuracy.
In 2018, this publication polled 607 residents of Nashville/Davidson County on two consecutive days in mid-April, asking if they planned to vote for or against a $9 billion transit plan and tax in Nashville. The results of the poll showed that 62.4 percent of voters said they would vote against the plan, while 27.9 percent of voters said they would vote for the plan. 10 percent said they were undecided.
Two weeks later, the city held a vote on the plan.
64 percent voted against the plan, while 36 percent voted in favor of the plan, striking it down with results that were remarkably close to The Star’s polling.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to dabroscareports@gmail.com.