A majority of Americans appear to be fed up with President Donald Trump. According to FiveThirtyEight, an average of 53.3 percent of poll respondents currently say that they actively disapprove of the job that Trump is doing in office, which is the highest disapproval level according to that particular outlet since mid-January. Currently, some 43 percent of Americans say that they approve of the president, according to the same outlet — which doesn’t exactly sound like a winning coalition ready for the general election. In one recent YouGov poll, just 46 percent of respondents said that they approved of Trump, and in a Rasmussen Reports survey, only 44 percent of respondents approved. In that latter survey, a full 55 percent of respondents indicated that they disapproved of Donald Trump.
‘Trump’s net disapproval rating stood at just under 11 percentage points as of Monday, according to the FiveThirtyEight polling average. The fall in the president’s average approval rating came as U.S. coronavirus deaths topped the 98,000 mark, accounting for more than a quarter of COVID-19 deaths worldwide.’
There’s data indicating how closely tied that the Coronavirus pandemic is to the public’s perception of Donald Trump. Americans don’t imagine that he’s done his best — as Newsweek adds, in a recent YouGov poll, “[more] than three-quarters of adults (77 percent) also said they believed Trump could have done more to reduce the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic if he had acted sooner.” The damage that a majority of Americans at least partly tie to Trump’s own inaction has been steep. In addition to the tens of thousands of deaths, unemployment has skyrocketed to the highest level since the Great Depression, and as social distancing demands are lifted and economies start to reopen, many jobs that were put on hold are simply not coming back.
Despite the devastation, Trump has consistently congratulated himself for a supposed job well done. This week, he tweeted:
‘Nobody in 50 years has been WEAKER on China than Sleepy Joe Biden. He was asleep at the wheel. He gave them EVERYTHING they wanted, including rip-off Trade Deals. I am getting it all back! Great reviews on our handling of Covid 19, sometimes referred to as the China Virus. Ventilators, Testing, Medical Supply Distribution, we made a lot of Governors look very good – And got no credit for so doing. Most importantly, we helped a lot of great people!’
Nobody in 50 years has been WEAKER on China than Sleepy Joe Biden. He was asleep at the wheel. He gave them EVERYTHING they wanted, including rip-off Trade Deals. I am getting it all back!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020
Great reviews on our handling of Covid 19, sometimes referred to as the China Virus. Ventilators, Testing, Medical Supply Distribution, we made a lot of Governors look very good – And got no credit for so doing. Most importantly, we helped a lot of great people!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 25, 2020
Trump thinks he’s done a great job when about 100,000 Americans are dead. He’s delusional.
In that same YouGov survey, a full 56 percent of respondents indicated that they “did not trust Trump,” as Newsweek summarizes. These sentiments are reflected in the results of polls that pit Trump against his likely general election challenger, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden currently leads against Trump on the national level and in swing states including Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and Trump won each and every one of those states in 2016, meaning that Biden seems to be well on his way to keeping Trump from securing a winning coalition.
