Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll of the week

We at FiveThirtyEight hope you had a very patriotic Fourth of July — whatever that means to you. A YouGov poll, released this week, checked in on Americans’ feelings on patriotism and revealed some stark differences along — what else? — partisan lines.

Overall, the survey found that 76 percent of Americans consider themselves “very” or “somewhat” patriotic. But between Republicans and Democrats, there were pretty big differences: A whopping 97 percent of Republicans placed themselves in the “very” or “somewhat” categories, compared with 71 percent of Democrats. That’s a gap of 26 percentage points. Even more starkly, 72 percent of Republicans consider themselves to be “very” patriotic (the highest level of patriotism), compared with 29 percent of Democrats — a 43-point gap.

The poll also suggests that Democrats may define patriotism differently than their conservative counterparts. Specifically, YouGov found that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe that patriotism can include dissent:

52 percent of Democrats told YouGov that someone can criticize U.S. leaders to foreigners and still be considered patriotic, compared with 35 percent of Republicans.

51 percent of Democrats say disobeying a law they think is immoral doesn’t detract from their patriotism, compared with 33 percent of Republicans.

34 percent of Democrats think a person can still be a patriot even if he or she burns the American flag in protest, compared with 10 percent of Republicans.

And 55 percent of Democrats think an American can refuse to serve in a war he or she opposes and still maintain his or her patriotism, compared with 25 percent of Republicans.

The “patriotism gap” is nothing new. Gallup has asked its respondents how proud they are to be Americans periodically since 2001. According to those polls, one year after the Sept. 11 attacks, 93 percent of Democrats and 99 percent of Republicans said they were either “extremely” or “very” proud to be Americans. The GOP number stayed comfortably in the 90s for the duration of George W. Bush’s presidency, but by January 2007, amid an unpopular war in Iraq that sparked no small amount of liberal dissent, the share of Democrats who were “extremely” or “very” proud to be Americans had shrunk to 74 percent — 21 points lower than the Republican share (and, to that point, the widest gap since Gallup started asking the question). The Democratic share increased during Barack Obama’s presidency (reaching a high of 85 percent in 2013) but was still consistently lower than the GOP’s: The share of Republicans who said they were “extremely” or “very” proudly American never dipped below 89 percent despite the extremely low opinion GOP voters had of Obama.

After the election of Donald Trump, the share of “extremely” or “very” proudly American Republicans ticked upward, but the share of Democrats saying the same thing plunged to 67 percent in 2017 and 60 percent just last month (the chart above has not been updated with the 2018 data). The current 33-point gap now holds the record for the widest gap between the two parties since 2001. (YouGov’s data also seems to suggest that Trump is contributing to the patriotism gap: The difference between the shares of Democrats and Republicans who said they were “very” patriotic rose from 29 points in 2013 to the current 43-point difference.)

So do Democrats’ feelings of patriotism rise and fall depending simply on who is in the White House? Data that Pew Research Center collected from 1987 to 2003 suggests that might not be the case. Throughout that time period, more Republicans than Democrats told pollsters that they “completely” agreed with the statement, “I am very patriotic.” In 1987, 51 percent of Republicans completely agreed, compared with 40 percent of Democrats. The two ticked up in tandem to Gulf War-era highs in 1991, but then, during the Bill Clinton administration, the gap widened: Democrats fell back into the 40s, while Republican agreement with that statement remained around 60 percent.

So what accounts for the persistent difference? It could just be that Republicans are more comfortable with the most obvious manifestations of patriotism these days. Public displays of patriotism often assume a pro-military dimension (sometimes purposefully and tactically so), which may be more likely to appeal to Republicans (other polls show they are generally more hawkish than Democrats). Singing “God Bless America” and military flyovers at sporting events also first came into fashion in the years immediately following 9/11, when rallying around the flag coincided with rallying around a Republican president. By contrast, funding AmeriCorps or paying taxes probably aren’t the first things many people think of when they think of patriotism, but lots of Democrats would argue they should be. Even apple pie and baseball aren’t the unifiers they once were: Pumpkin pie beat out apple as Americans’ Thanksgiving dessert of choice in 2015, and football blasphemously beats out baseball as Americans’ favorite sport to watch, 37 percent to 9 percent. In sum, we’re a big country, and there are just as many ways to enjoy America as there are Americans.

Other polling nuggets

Trump approval

Trump’s approval rating is currently 41.9 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s tracker. His disapproval rating is 10.8 percentage points higher, at 52.7 percent. Trump’s job-approval numbers have generally held steady over the past month. One month ago today, his approval rating was 41.3 percent, and his disapproval rating was 52.6 percent (a net approval rating of -11.3 points). One week ago, his approval rating was 41.8 percent, and his disapproval rating was 52.3 percent (a net approval rating of -10.5 points).

Generic ballot

This week, Democrats are ahead in polls of the generic congressional ballot by an average of 47.3 percent to 39.6 percent — a 7.7-percentage-point lead, according to FiveThirtyEight’s model. One week ago, Democrats led 47.0 percent to 39.8 percent (a 7.2-point edge). One month ago, it was Democrats 46.3 percent and Republicans 39.9 percent (a 6.4-point edge).