Poll Watch: The Economy, 2020, and More

Think you have your finger on the pulse of the republic?  Let's see how you stack up with a Fox News poll from last mid-March.

First, the small print: the survey was taken via landlines and cellphones, with interviews of 1,002 randomly selected registered voters March 17 - 20.

First up: Trump's approval rating was 46%, with 51% disapproving, for a net -5 overall. However, his 'strongly approve' rating of 27% was well below the 'strongly disapprove' rating of 42% (-15).

Questioned on Trump's handling of four key issues - the economy, taxes, immigration, and health care, only on the economy, at +8, did he have a net positive. On taxes (-7), immigration (-13) and healthcare (-15), his approves were below his disapproves. Even worse, the numbers on his signature piece of legislation, the Christmas tax cut, are down from a year ago.

There were several questions on the economy, including one asking whether the respondents are confident, nervous, mixed or don't know. Here are the results from the current survey, along with last year's.

• Confident: 37% (-3)
• Nervous: 43% (-4)
• Mixed: 17% (-6)
• Don't know: 3% (even)

Let's look at some of the even more interesting details.

Thinking about fairness:

• Asked to pick between "people who work hard have a fair chance of getting ahead" or "even if people work hard, the system is rigged to favor the wealthy," by a wide margin (56% to 40%), people believe the system is rigged. Somewhere Bernie Sanders is smiling. 
• By an even wider margin (49% to 25%), more people believe the college admissions process is rigged than believe it's fair.

And taxes: 

• By +18 (55% to 37%), more people believe the taxes they pay are too high than believe their taxes about right, and 3% think they're too low. 
• More people (34%) are bothered by the rich not paying enough income taxes than are bothered by how the government spends our money (28%). Tying for third on this question, with 12%  each, were the amount of taxes paid and that too many people don't pay taxes. 
• Significant majorities believe that Congressional leaders, the president and presidential candidates should release their taxes (76%, 74%, and 72%, respectively).

And the southern border:

• 51% oppose building a wall; 44% want one. The want a wall number is down 2% in a month.
• By +23, the majority of respondents (59%) disapproved of the president declaring a national emergency on the southern border,

Looking at 2020: 

• 85% of Democrats and 86% of Republicans say they're likely to vote in their party's primary or caucus for the 2020 presidential race; probably more important, 37% of independents don't know what they're going to do.
• If the vote were the day the survey was taken, Joe Biden beats Trump by +7; Bernie Sanders beats Trump by +3, and Trump beats both Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris -  only by +2 each. 

Last, we'll close by looking at some numbers related to the Mueller investigation:

• by +16, more people approve of Mueller's investigation than disapprove;
• 80% believe the report should be made public (most of it has been);
• 44% (+2) believe the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia in 2016;
• by +16, folks believe Trump has tried to interfere with the investigation; and
• by +16 more people trust Robert Mueller to tell the truth than they do Donald Trump.

So, how'd your opinions stack up?