While we would never be the ones to question the integrity of "independent" pollsters, how could we given the amazing job they did predicting the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, we're starting to grow a bit curious about the ever-widening gap in Trump's approval ratings between the various polling institutions.

For example, the latest Rasmussen daily tracking poll found that 53% of likely U.S. voters approve of President Trump’s job performance while 47% disapprove.

Meanwhile, even the notorious "oversamplers" at Reuters found that Trump's approval rating is just over 50%.

That said, the vehemently impartial folks at ABC/WaPo recently drew a very different conclusion, finding that President Trump is basically the least popular candidate to take the White House in modern history, with a 40% approval rating...

...while CNN came up with similar results finding that only 44% approve of President Trump.

And while we know what you're thinking, we're sure the divergent results from ABC/Wapo and CNN were in no way a disingenuous attempt to artificially manufacture a poor approval rating for President Trump, a candidate whose political views couldn't be more divergent from their own. After all, utilizing an aggressive 8-point sampling margin for Democrats, with only 23% of respondents identifying themselves as Republicans may call into question a pollster's credibility...

...which is probably why CNN decided to get smart by only showing a 4-point sampling advantage for Democrats while loading up their poll with independents instead...

"A total of 1,002 adults were interviewed by telephone nationwide by live interviewers calling both landline and cell phones. Among the entire sample, 29% described themselves as Democrats, 25% described themselves as Republicans, and 45% described themselves as independents or members of another party."

Of course, as we've repeatedly pointed out, these sampling mixes couldn't be further from reality.

In conclusion: