From: slider@anashram.com

The latest Military Times poll shows a continued decline in active-duty
service members’ views of President Donald Trump and a slight but
significant preference for former Vice President Joe Biden in the upcoming November election among troops surveyed.

The results, collected before the political conventions earlier this
month, appear to undercut claims from the president that his support among military members is strong thanks to big defense budget increases in
recent years and promised moves to draw down troops from overseas conflict zones.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/08/31/as-trumps-popularity-slips-in-latest-military-times-poll-more-troops-say-theyll-vote-for-biden/

But the Military Times Polls, surveying active-duty troops in partnership
with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University, have seen a steady drop in troops’ opinion of the commander in chief since his election four years ago.

In the latest results — based on 1,018 active-duty troops surveyed in late July and early August — nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) had an unfavorable view of the president, compared to about 38 percent who had a favorable view. Questions in the poll had a margin of error of up to 2
percent.

Among all survey participants, 42 percent said they “strongly” disapprove of Trump’s time in office.

The unfavorable number matches what an earlier Military Times Poll found
in late 2019, while the favorable total slipped from just under 42 percent
last year. In a poll conducted at the start of Trump’s presidency, 46
percent of troops had a favorable view of him, versus 37 percent who had
an unfavorable opinion.

Even with the steady decline, Trump’s popularity in the poll remains
better than former President Barack Obama. Obama had a 36 percent
favorable rating and a 52 percent unfavorable rating in a January 2017
Military Times poll.

Still, the dipping popularity among troops — considered by Republican
Party leaders to be part of the base of Trump’s support — could prove problematic for the president in the upcoming election.

Among active-duty service members surveyed in the poll, 41 percent said
they would vote for Biden, the Democratic nominee, if the election was
held today. Only 37 percent said they plan to vote to re-elect Trump.

Another 13 percent said they plan to vote for a third-party candidate, and nearly 9 percent said they plan on skipping the election altogether. About
40 percent of troops surveyed identified as Republican or Libertarian, 16 percent Democrats, and 44 percent independent or another party.

“It’s fair to say that Trump is not as popular as Republican nominees have been in the past among this group,” said Peter Feaver, a White House
adviser to former President George W. Bush who now works as a political
science professor at Duke University. “The bottom line is that in 2020,
Trump can’t be claiming to have overwhelming support in the military.”

Poll limitations

Feaver said the poll “is a good sample of the career-oriented military members’ views, which may be different from the junior enlisted view of things.”

“But the president claims he has been good for the military, that they’re grateful that he has rescued them from the shambles. This shows that’s not the case with all of the military.”

The splits between officer and enlisted views within the poll are notable.
More than 59 percent of officers said they have a poor view of the
president, with more than half saying they strongly disapprove.

Among enlisted respondents, 47 percent said they have an unfavorable view,
and nearly 39 percent a favorable view. Enlisted views of Trump’s
performance in office have consistently been more favorable than those of officers in the poll over the last four years.

Feaver said that could be due to officers’ predisposition to long-term military careers, and a negative reaction to Trump’s comments against the “deep state” and other career federal positions.

The national Gallup Poll of Trump’s job performance conducted just before
the political conventions found that 55 percent of Americans had a
negative view of the president, against 42 percent who approved of his
work. Feaver said with any poll of service members, it is important to
remember that those broader public views also play a factor.

“The military tends to follow broad shifts in the opinion of the American public, albeit trending more conservative,” he said. “So as the country moves away from Trump, you’ll see that in the military too.”

Election views

Feaver said those policy disagreements “do not necessarily show that
troops are beginning to think more like Democrats, but instead that they aren’t thinking like Trump Republicans.” He also cautioned that the stronger support for Biden in the poll than Trump may be more a reflection
of dissatisfaction with the president than a political shift within the
ranks.

Still, he called the numbers showing a close race in military voting
between the two surprising.

In the 2016 Military Times Poll, nearly twice as many respondents said
they planned to vote for Trump than then Democratic nominee Hillary
Clinton. Exit polls from the election showed a similar margin after
election day.

A 2012 Military Times Reader Survey — conducted in a non-scientific
fashion — showed respondents favoring then Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by a 2.5-to-1 margin.

Maury noted that the poll results are “a snapshot in a point of time” and that voting views can still shift in the two months between now and the election.

In the 2016 Military Times poll conducted in October, about 34 percent of troops surveyed said they planned to vote for a third-party candidate
instead of either Trump or Clinton. Exit polls after the election showed
that only about 5 percent of veterans and military members cast votes for candidates who weren’t one of the two major party nominees.

### - with most military people just doing it to have a well paid +
interesting career, then despite even being bribed with lots of new
funding perforce they are shifting away from a leader whose not only increasingly deploying them against their own people at home, but a c-in-c who's increasingly more likely to maybe then get them all killed via some horrible international confrontation to-boot?

iow: if 'anyone' can spot a potentially dangerous tyrant it's the
military! (100+ soldiers with brain damage in iraq didn't exactly go down
too well with them either i bet!)

and no one wants to serve under a tyrant do they huh; it's too dangerous!
;)

what would be perfect for the planet i guess, is if trumpy gets a
massively crushing defeat at the election, crushing!

everyone showing him in no uncertain terms, en-mass, that no matter WHAT
they believe in, that just about 'anything' has gots to be better than the threats of national violence & unease he's quite deliberately brought into their world via his divisiveness? the gun-toting far-right militia trump
so loves & admires actually giving america a bad name! (the equivalent of hitler's SS storm troopers ffs!)

and because once he's gone the whole planet will likely then breathe a
huge sigh of relief!

there'll be dancing in the streets lol :)))

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