Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll of the week

After the deadly mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, this month, more Americans now describe white nationalism as a serious threat to the United States, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll. Compared to the last time the poll asked this question, in March, both Democrats and Republicans in the latest poll were more likely to say that the country was threatened by white nationalism.

But the El Paso shooting, in which the gunman told police that he explicitly targeted Mexicans, has not narrowed the partisan gap on white nationalism. HuffPost/YouGov polls have asked about the threat of white nationalism four times in the two years since a neo-Nazi killed a woman by driving into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and each time there has been a huge partisan gap in perceptions. If anything, the gap has gotten bigger:

Democrats have long been more likely than Republicans to say that white nationalism is a “somewhat” or “very” serious threat. But the gap has expanded from 33 points right after Charlottesville to 52 points now. (Though the gap was slightly larger this spring, so the El Paso shooting seems have narrowed the gap a bit.)

Not surprisingly, that partisan gap also shows up in how Americans view President Trump’s relationship with white nationalism. According to the most recent HuffPost/YouGov poll, 77 percent of Democrats think Trump supports the ideology, but only 10 percent of Republicans agree. Democratic politicians, including many of the 2020 contenders, have called the preseident a “white nationalist” and a “white supremacist,” and have been outspoken in saying that Trump’s rhetoric incites violence.

Trump has dismissed these attacks as being motivated by political gain. In a public statement after the El Paso shooting, Trump said that the nation must condemn “racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” but an analysis of the document the shooter wrote explaining his actions found that it used many of the same anti-immigrant phrases that Trump has used in the past. And as my colleague Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux reported last week, experts say that racist rhetoric can make people more likely to act on their preexisting prejudices.

Indeed, polls show that the public is concerned about the effects of inflammatory political rhetoric. According to a survey from the Pew Research Center conducted in May — prior to the El Paso attack — large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans said that when elected officials use “heated or aggressive language” to talk about certain people or groups, it makes violence against those people more likely. A majority of respondents from both parties also agreed that politicians should avoid “heated language” because they think it could encourage violence.

But while there seems to be consensus around the idea that heated rhetoric is dangerous in the abstract, partisans don’t agree on where that rhetoric is coming from. The August HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 73 percent of Democrats say Trump’s rhetoric encourages his supporters to act violently, but 64 percent of Republicans feel the same way about the rhetoric of Democratic politicians.

Other polling bites

Trump approval

According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 42.2 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 53.4 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -11.2 points). At this time last week, 42.1 percent approved and 53.2 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -11.1 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 42.4 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.7 percent, for a net approval rating of -10.3 points.

Generic ballot

In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 6.2 percentage points (46.1 percent to 39.9 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 6.2 points (46.1 percent to 39.9 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 6.4 points (46.3 percent to 39.9 percent).

Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.