Pollster Mark Penn said in an interview that aired Thursday on “What America’s Thinking” that President Trump was elected to office because he seized on nationwide pessimism during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“The gridlock in Congress and the partisan fighting has led people to say what’s wrong with Congress? What’s wrong with our system in Washington? And so there’s a tremendous amount of pessimism among a public that’s normally optimistic about what it’s federal government can do,” Penn told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on Wednesday.
“The country that went to the moon in nine years. Why can’t they solve the immigration and health care battles? What’s wrong with this Congress? What’s wrong with our politicians? I think that’s why we have Trump in the White House today. It’s because he seized on it. He called it the swamp,” he continued.
“People have felt it was the swamp for a long time. We’ve been through several presidencies that basically promised to unify the country. Obama promised it. Bush promised it. Neither did that. Trump didn’t actually promise unity. He promised results,” he said.
Trump campaigned on an anti-establishment message, hoping to bring change to Washington, which he said was largely disconnected from the rest of the country.
Polling shows that Americans, in general, do not widely approve of Congress or Trump.
A Gallup poll released last month showed that 19 percent of Americans said they approved of Congress, while various polls show Trump’s approval rating sitting around 44 percent.
— Julia Manchester
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