Donald Trump, who just cannot seem to keep himself from telling wild, impossible lies, loves to brag that his approval rating stands at 93 percent, even though no president has ever had a 93 percent approval rating and the number he brags about is only true of Republican voters. Even so, that number is slipping fast, even among Republicans, where now only 83 percent of voters approve of his job performance.
‘ Trump’s overall job rating stands at 40% approve and 54% disapprove. This result stands at the lower end of his typical job rating in Monmouth’s polling. Approval has tended to range from 39% to 44% and disapproval from 49% to 54% since he took office with a few exceptions – specifically, a more even 43% to 46% split in March 2017 and June 2018 and a low of 32% to 56% in December 2017. The president’s job rating with different partisan groups currently stands at 83% approve and 13% disapprove among Republicans, 40% to 49% among independents, and 7% to 92% among Democrats.’
The new Monmouth University poll, released just one day before the redacted Mueller report, shows that Trump is headed into the 2020 election season at a huge disadvantage even if the economy is continuing to do well after President Obama’s upsurge.
Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, explained that these low approval ratings come during tax season and ahead of the Mueller report, both of which affect them.
‘The president’s job rating doesn’t see huge swings, so we tend to focus on small movements. The current reading comes at the end of tax return season and while official Washington eagerly awaits the Mueller report. Neither subject is particularly good for Trump.’
Republicans certainly push the idea that Trump’s tax cuts have resulted in reduced taxes and increased wages, although the rate of growth in wages has not been significantly higher than under President Obama and many taxpayers say they paid more this year.
‘28% of Americans feel that their federal tax bill actually went up under the plan…the same decline in opinion is true for the percentage who thought their taxes would go down – which now stands at only 14% compared with 23% last year who expected to see a tax reduction.’
The GOP also placed a lot of significance on the fact that their voters thought the country was headed in the wrong direction under Obama, but are unlikely to mention that well over half of all Americans say the same about Trump’s presidency.
‘A little over one-quarter (28%) say the country is headed in the right direction and 62% say things have gotten off on the wrong track. These results are similar to Monmouth poll findings last month.’
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
