What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending September 8, 2018

Two hundred thousand new jobs were added in August as the U.S. economy continues to grow at a record pace, but the Washington press corps continues to fixate on trivia. It’s another week in America.

Consumer and economic confidence appear to have plateaued, but they remain at record highs, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports Consumer Spending Update.

Forty-three percent (43%) of voters again this week think the country is heading in the right direction. This finding has been running in the 40s for most weeks this year after being in the mid- to upper 20s for much of 2016, President Obama's last full year in office.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a hopeful for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination, said recently, “We’re not going to make America great again. It was never that great.” One-in-five Democrats agree, but a sizable majority of all voters thinks he’s wrong.

If the economy still matters to most, it may be good news for Republicans that voters think the upcoming midterm elections are more about Trump than about individual candidates and issues.

Seventy-one percent (71%) say Democrats should focus more on policy areas where they disagree with the president rather than focus on their hopes for impeachment.

Democrats hold a four-point lead on the latest Rasmussen Reports Generic Congressional Ballot.

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Trump ended the week with his job approval rating at 48%. Obama’s approval was at 45% on the same day in his second year in office.

In August, Trump earned a monthly job approval of 47%, up a point from the month before. His high for the year to date is 49% in April.

Voters agree with the president that the country needs to “drain the swamp” of the political establishment, but they’re not optimistic he’ll get the job done because of resistance from most politicians. 

Democrats are trying to derail the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping that if they win control of the Senate in November they can force Trump to pick a more liberal candidate for the high court. Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings began this week, and 69% of voters think he is likely to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. We’ll update that finding early next week.

Democrats insist their fight against Kavanaugh is based on the issues, but Republicans and independent voters think it’s chiefly about politics.

Voters trust the Supreme Court much more than the other branches of the federal government these days.

At the close of its latest session in June, the Supreme Court, which handed down some major wins for conservatives and the Trump administration, earned its highest approval rating in several years. 

In other surveys last week:

-- The Roman Catholic Church has been making headlines recently for all the wrong reasons. Most Americans – including Catholics – think the church has a serious sexual predator problem. 

-- Just 36% of voters have participated in a boycott of a product or place for political reasons, perhaps because only 12% believe such boycotts are Very Effective.

-- Voters overwhelmingly agree that government officials should not be allowed to freeze out a business from their community because they disagree with the political views of the business owner. 

-- More Americans were celebrating the “labor” in Labor Day this year.

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Remember, if it's in the news, it's in our polls.