Americans See Trump Worsening Race Relations: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- Even though most Americans feel at least somewhat optimistic about race relations improving in the U.S., they don’t believe President Donald Trump will help, according to a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday.

Most Americans, 62%, believe Trump is making race relations worse while only 20% said his response to the Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd by police had made the situation better.

A quarter of Americans, 26%, say they are very hopeful about the future of race relations in the U.S., and more than half, 56%, are somewhat hopeful. Fifty-five percent of Americans say the Black Lives Matter movement will have a long-term impact on the country; only 9% say it will have no impact.

But Trump isn’t seen as a peacekeeper who will usher in the change. Two-thirds of Americans believe Trump has made the country more divided -- a high for the president in the Monmouth poll. In November 2018, 62% of Americans said he had divided the country; that number was up from 52% in March 2017.

The poll was conducted June 26-30 and has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.

Democrats Line Up Behind Biden, Poll Shows (10:02 a.m.)

Joe Biden shouldn’t be worried that progressive Democrats will stay home in November, according to a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of battleground states that found near unity behind the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Battleground state voters who said Senator Bernie Sanders was their first choice in the primary backed Biden over President Donald Trump 87% to 4%.

Supporters of Elizabeth Warren in the primary backed Biden over Trump nearly unanimously by a margin of 96% to 0%. Warren voters backed Biden even more than his own primary supporters. Those voters said would vote for the former vice president over the incumbent in the general election 96% to 1%.

The poll was conducted in June among voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Coming Up

Democrat Joe Biden is speaking in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Thursday.

President Donald Trump is planning his next campaign rally in New Hampshire on Saturday.

The Democratic National Convention is scheduled for the week beginning Aug. 17 in Milwaukee, while the Republicans are slated to meet a week later with events in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Jacksonville, Florida.

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