Do presidents’ popularity increase after assassination attempts? History has an answer.

In the 2010 movie “Machete,” Sen. John McLaughlin of Texas stages an assassination attempt to frame the title character. It’s part of a popular belief that when high-profile political figures survive assassination attempts, their approval ratings skyrocket. EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s ‘secretary of retribution’ has a ‘target list’ of 350 people he wants arrested To test this argument, I analyzed Gallup approval rating data involving modern-era presidents who survived assassination attempts. Ford’s approval rating from Sept. 12-15, 1975, was 45 percent, which went up to only 47 percent on Oct. 3-6, 1975 — a two-percentage-point gain. Peter Sheridan in the United Kingdom’s The Express argues “President Reagan’s popularity soared by 22 per cent when he was shot by a would-be assassin 43 years ago, and political and financial experts expect Trump to savour a similar boost.” But as the Gallup evidence showed, it was only a seven-percentage-point jump, and the percent boost is still not near 22 percent.