Americans feel better off under President Trump. But that has not generated the groundswell of support a president might normally enjoy with a strong economy. In fact, new polling suggests there’s a ceiling on Trump’s popularity that may never reach a majority of voters.

New research by the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group finds that Americans are more optimistic than they were in December 2016, right after Trump won the election. The portion saying their family is better off financially than it was a year ago rose from 17% to 24%. Those saying the economy is getting better rose from 24% to 33%. Most of the nearly 7,000 respondents participated in prior surveys, allowing comparisons over time among a similar group of voters.

The improvements in sentiment since Trump got elected might seem small, but they should contribute to an improvement in Trump’s overall approval rating. Yet they don’t. In the Voter Study Group surveys, Trump’s favorability rating rose from 43% in December 2016 to just 44% in the latest survey. And his unfavorability rating remained at 55%. Those numbers suggest voters feel better off, but they’re not giving Trump credit for that.

The economy has, in fact, improved under Trump. Employers have created 5.9 million jobs since Trump’s election, with the unemployment rate falling from 4.7% to 3.6%. Wages are ticking up while inflation remains low, giving consumers more purchasing power.

At the same time, however, Trump has pursued divisive policies on immigration, health care and trade that seem designed to fire up a narrow subset of Trump supporters, at the expense of mainstream support. Only about one-third of voters favor tougher restrictions on immigration, yet Trump has made that a singular focus of his presidency. And the Trump administration is still trying to kill the Affordable Care Act, even though half of Americans now support it and provisions such as the ban on coverage limitations for preexisting conditions are widely popular. Ethics scandals and the running battle over the Mueller investigation into Russian election interference further suppress Trump’s popularity.

Weakness in key electoral states

The breakdown by party is unsurprising. Trump remains extremely popular among Republicans and extremely unpopular among Democrats. The biggest change in the Voter Study Group data comes among people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. Approval for Trump among these Obama-Trump voters fell from 85% in 2016 to 66% in 2019. “Even small movement among these voters may prove significant heading into the 2020 presidential election,” the latest Voter Study Group analysis says.