Poll: Trump hits new low after Charlottesville
President Donald Trump’s approval rating has hit a new low following a week in which a majority of voters believe he did more to divide the country than unite it, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows.
Only 39 percent of voters approve of the job Trump is doing in this week’s poll — conducted entirely following the president’s various scripted and impromptu reactions to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia — down from 44 percent just the week earlier. Fifty-six percent of voters disapprove in the new poll, up from 52 percent last week.
Much of the decline in Trump’s approval rating appears to have come from self-identified Republican voters — 73 percent, down from 81 percent the week earlier. By contrast, the president’s approval rating slid just a single point among Democrats and independents.
Trump’s previous overall low — a 40 percent rating — was two weeks ago.
The poll was conducted last Thursday through Saturday, all following Trump’s comments on the violence that claimed the life of a woman protesting against white supremacists and neo-Nazis, but before his address Monday night outlining his strategy for the war in Afghanistan.
With the poll going into the field five days after the violence in Charlottesville, 52 percent of voters say they have heard a lot about the events there, and half say they have heard a lot about Trump’s responses.
Despite the slide in the president’s approval rating, much of the reaction to the events in Charlottesville and his responses tracks closely with views of the president’s job performance. A 43 percent plurality of voters blame the white nationalist protesters most for the violence, but nearly as many, 36 percent, say both the white nationalists and the counterprotesters are equally to blame. Nine percent blame the counterprotesters most.
Among those who approve of Trump’s job performance, only 15 percent assign more blame to the white nationalists. Fifty-six percent of voters who approve of Trump’s job performance blame both groups equally, and another 15 percent blame the counterprotesters.
Among those who disapprove of Trump, however, 65 percent assign more blame to the white nationalists.
More respondents think Trump’s reaction to the events — condemning hate groups but also citing good and bad people on both sides of the protests — was inappropriate than those who think it was appropriate. But it’s not overwhelming: 37 percent of voters call Trump’s reaction appropriate, compared with 46 percent who say it was inappropriate.
At a minimum, however, Charlottesville was a missed opportunity for Trump, said Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult’s co-founder and chief research officer. Fifty-three percent of voters say Trump’s reaction did more to divide the country.
“Responding to national tragedies often provides presidents ground to rise above politics and demonstrate leadership,” Dropp said. “In his remarks on Charlottesville, President Trump missed that opportunity to appeal to constituencies who don’t already side with him, according to our polling. A large majority of Democrats, 71 percent, found his reaction to be inappropriate. And just 16 percent of voters overall say that his response was unifying.”
Trump is at the lowest point of his presidency, but the poll also shows — on some measures — that majorities of voters have low opinions of his character and competence. Fifty-one percent of voters say Trump is not a strong leader. Fifty-three percent say he is not moral. Fifty-five percent say he isn’t stable. Fifty-eight percent of voters call him reckless. Fifty-two percent say he isn’t honest. Fifty-two percent say Trump doesn’t care about people like them. Fifty-six percent say he can’t unite the country.
The president’s standing isn’t much better on other questions. Only 41 percent say he is knowledgeable, compared with 47 percent who say he isn’t. Just 35 percent say he keeps his promises; 49 percent say he doesn’t. Forty-one percent say he is capable, but 48 percent say he isn’t.
On Trump’s political future, only 26 percent of voters say they think he will win reelection. A narrow majority, 51 percent, say he won’t. The remaining 23 percent have no opinion.
Trump opponents are fairly confident in his ouster: 79 percent of those who disapprove of his job performance say he won’t be reelected. By comparison, 58 percent of Trump approvers think he’ll win reelection — though 79 percent of those who strongly approve of Trump think he’ll capture a second term.
Asked whom they would rather see as president, voters overall pick Vice President Mike Pence over Trump, 34 percent to 30 percent — with a 35 percent plurality undecided. But a majority of GOP voters, 58 percent, would rather have Trump as president, compared with 28 percent who picked Pence.
The poll surveyed 1,987 registered voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.
More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents — Toplines:http://politi.co/2vWs52o | Crosstabs:http://politi.co/2vWJ4ld