On September 9 2019, President Donald Trump used his Twitter account to push a claim of record popularity that has already been debunked by several news organizations.
For the fourth time in three months, Trump boasted that he had a “94 percent” approval rating within the Republican Party, calling it an “all-time record”:
94% Approval Rating in the Republican Party, a record. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 9, 2019
According to the Washington Post, one poll at one time conducted by USA Today and Suffolk University in October 2018 did show Trump with a 94 percent accountability rating.
But referring to that poll, the Post’s Philip Bump wrote, would be “deceptive, given the challenges of relying on one poll — much less one that’s nearly a year out of date. It would also be hypocritical, given that this is a president who excoriates pollsters for showing Hillary Clinton with a substantial lead in late October 2016, ignoring that those pollsters then showed a closer race as Election Day approached.”
Trump began making the claim in June 2019, at which point the debunkers over at Politifact reported that both key components were false; not only was he not polling at 94 percent among GOP voters at that time, but the actual all-time record was held by George W. Bush, who received the support of 99 percent of his party following the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11 2001.
According to Politifact, the president’s approval ratings within his party did generally score between the “mid-to-high 80s” and 90 percent, but not as high as previous GOP presidents at similar points in their tenures:
At this point in his administration (around the 860-day mark), Trump’s approval comes in a bit behind George W. Bush, who held a 94 percent approval rating within his party, as did his father George H.W. Bush. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon brought up the rear, getting the nod from just 79 percent of Republican voters in May of their third year in office.
We contacted the White House press office asking for a source to back up the president’s claim, but have not received a response.