Trump’s abysmal approval rate in the first month of his office has been widely trumpeted in the media. Largely, the partisan response against this observation ranges from absurd, ‘fake polls,’ to slightly defensible, skewed polls due to poor sampling. There is no doubt that it’s very low, even accepting some sampling bias, and the administration would rather have much higher numbers. There is another the‘polls are skewed’ theory that might be at play, the shy Trump voter. Essentially it goes that Trump supporters, especially in liberal enclaves, face a high social cost for declaring their support and thus are less likely to signal their support publicly, even to pollsters. It’s easy to discount this as a hopeful partisan theory and I can’t say I’ve seen anything more than anecdotal evidence to back it up, but I would like to point to one piece of evidence in its support, the direction of the country poll. Since Trump’s election it has moved about 10 points in the right direction and is currently at its highest since 2013. Could it be that people generally approve of Trump’s actions, but do not want to declare support for the man? Perhaps, but it should also be noted that the numbers aren’t any better than his approval ratings, in fact they’re far worse. That said, if you believe there are widespread cognitive biases against Trump, this poll might provide a better insight into people’s view on how he is doing.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/direction_of_country-902.html