Teflon Trump? Shifting Public Perceptions of Donald Trump’s Personality Traits across Four Studies over 18 Months

Democrats and Republicans have divergent views about Trump’s personality. Are these perceptions stable over time? We describe the evolution of Trump’s perceived personality (Big Five and Dark Triad) between November 2018 and May 2020 by comparing four samples of American respondents (Mechanical Turk). Trump’s perceived personality is on average extremely stable. Liberals have a much more critical perception of Trump than conservatives. Yet, strong Republicans have an increasingly more negative perception over the time—perhaps because the scandals that have marred the Trump presidency are at odds with conservative “moral foundations.” We also detected a potential demobilization trend for strong Republicans; the more they perceive the president negatively, the lower their likelihood to turn out. The electoral implications of these trends are important.