Fifty-five percent of those surveyed approve of how President Donald Trump is handling the economy. | Getty 5 numbers that mattered this week

Continuing our POLITICO feature, where we dig into the latest polls and loop in other data streams to tell the story of how Americans are reacting to President Donald Trump and the upheaval he is bringing to Washington. Here are five numbers that mattered this week:





The jobs report for February — the first full month of President Donald Trump’s administration — showed continuing long-term employment growth.

But it also underscored a reality of Trump’s tenuous standing with the American public: Despite overall approval ratings far worse than other incoming presidents, Americans still think Trump will do a good job handling the nation’s economy.

Trump’s overall approval rating was underwater — 45 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove — in a CNN/ORC poll out this week. But 55 percent of those surveyed approved of how Trump is handling the economy, compared to only 41 percent who disapproved.

The president earned some of his worst marks in many of the topic areas that have dominated his first seven weeks in office: immigration (55 percent disapprove), foreign affairs (54 percent) and health care policy (53 percent). But many still think the real-estate mogul-turned-politician is doing a good job in dealing with the economy, even prior to the new jobs report.





Trump’s presidency has elicited strong feelings on both sides of the political divide, but nearly one-in-three Americans are far less strident.

Charles Franklin, who runs the Marquette Law School poll in Wisconsin, published an analysis of data from SurveyMonkey that explored those Americans with shakier perceptions of Trump.

Not surprisingly, they are less engaged than most Americans: 45 percent of adult Americans who aren’t registered to vote have more middling opinions of Trump’s performance, compared to 27 percent of voters.

But perhaps most interesting is the partisan difference: Republicans are significantly more likely to have more moderate feelings about Trump than Democrats, while independents are the most likely. That suggests — while Trump’s approval ratings have been fairly steady thus far — any elasticity will come from Republicans and independents.





Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remains as unpopular as she was on Election Day — even as Trump, whom she outpaced in the popular vote last November, has gotten a modest post-victory bump.

Only 35 percent of voters surveyed in a Suffolk University/USA Today poll this week had a favorable opinion of Clinton, far fewer than the 55 percent who viewed her unfavorably. That’s worse than Trump’s favorable rating: 45 percent, versus 47 percent unfavorable.

The overwhelming majority of Republicans had an unfavorable view of Clinton — 93 percent — but only 74 percent of Democrats viewed her favorably. And independent voters had a resoundingly negative view of Clinton: Only 25 viewed her favorably, and 61 percent unfavorably.





The president has referred to some elements of the news media as enemies of the American people — and the press isn’t getting much support from those people.

A majority of voters, 53 percent, said in a Quinnipiac University poll this week that they disapprove of how the media have covered Trump, with only 41 percent approving.

Unsurprisingly, views of the media’s performance during Trump’s administration cuts along the same partisan and cultural cleavages exposed during last year’s presidential campaign and into the new administration. Nine-in-10 Republicans disapprove of the media’s coverage of Trump, but only 21 percent of Democrats agree.

Most strikingly, white voters with college degrees — well represented in political media circles — are split, with 45 percent approving, and 49 percent disapproving. But among white voters without college degrees, only 27 percent approve of the media’s performance, while 71 percent disapprove.





Television advertising in politics isn’t dead yet: Campaigns and outside groups spent $2.8 billion in the run-up to last year’s elections, according to a new Wesleyan University study published this week. That total includes an estimated $845 million on the presidential race, and about $1 billion combined on Senate and House races across the country.

But those totals are considerably less than the $4.4 billion estimated at the start of the cycle. The main driver of the decline? The presidential race; the number of ads aired in the presidential race — a little over a million — was actually fewer than 2012.

The main driver of that was Trump, who drew criticism for an unconventional TV-ad strategy that included a larger investment in digital advertising. Trump aired 121,000 ads, according to the study, which analyzed Kantar Media/CMAG data. That was far fewer than Clinton’s 402,000 ads.

If Trump seeks a second term in 2020, it’s likely he’d follow a similar playbook, relying less on advertising on conventional television. The question is whether any of his rivals will follow, signaling a real shift in how campaigns allocate most of their financial resources to reach voters.