Vibe shift?

Many people have talked about a difference in reactions to Trump's first and second terms:  Ezra Klein writes  "in 2016, Trump felt like an emissary of the past; in 2025, he’s being greeted as a harbinger of the future."  In some ways, talk of a "vibe shift" is automatically true:  if influential people talk and act as if something has changed, then something has changed.  But there's a question of whether that shift reflects a change in the general public.  In November, I wrote about a question about what kind of president Trump would be (or had been):  great, good, average, poor, or terrible.  The question has been asked again since then, in a survey taken January 9-13, 2025.  The balance of opinion, counting great as +2, good as +1, average as 0, poor as -1, and terrible as -2:

There is one large outlier:  a survey taken 11/30/16-12/05/16 got unusually positive responses, far higher than a survey taken in October (-13 vs. -64).    There was no such change after the 2024 election:  the balance in January 2025 was the same as it had been in October 2024 (-23) and about the same as it was in April 2024 (-21).  
    If you look at the percent rating Trump as a great president (or potential president), it's a pretty steady upward movement.  

"Terrible" ratings were unusually low in December 2016, and in a survey from April 2011, when there was some talk about him running for president.  If you set those aside, there is a definite downward trend.  

There's not much match between the "vibes" and public opinion.   Although Trump's first election inspired protests and talk of resistance, the public at large was willing to give him a chance; although some business leaders and journalists warmed to Trump after his second election, the public hardly changed.  Over the whole period, assessments of Trump have been becoming more evenly divided, although they are still predominantly negative.   

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research]