Trump's scorecard after a month in office
Checking back in on five numbers that will tell the story of 2025.
For my final column of 2024, I laid out 5 numbers that will tell the [political] story of 2025:
Public opinion on direction of the country (vibes check)
President Donald Trump’s approval rating (vibes check about Trump)
How many times Democrats have to bail out House Republicans in order to pass legislation
The consumer price index, or more specifically, cumulative CPI
Border crossings relative to deportations
These numbers focus on the macro view of the country and Trump, the productivity of Congress, and progress on the two key issues that voters want addressed: inflation and immigration.
In last week’s column, I checked in on those numbers now that we’re a month into Trump’s presidency. As you can read, the results are meh — in part because there isn’t a ton of data yet for points 3-5. What we do have shows little-to-no progress on passing legislation and lowering inflation, but things are happening in the immigration space.
After I published on Tuesday, a bunch of surveys came out that showed Trump’s approval rating inching lower. It always happens that way. Still, the basic conclusion holds: It’s not looking like triumph for Republicans, but not a disaster yet, either.