U.S. Voters Say Trump Has Achieved Little, But Republicans Loyal
U.S. Voters Say Trump Has Achieved Little, But Republicans Loyal
(Bloomberg) -- A majority of voters in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll say Donald Trump has achieved little in the first year after his upset win in the 2016 presidential election, yet most think the Democratic Party isn’t presenting alternatives.
Trump’s approval rating stood at 37 percent, the lowest for any president at this point in their first term in polling data going back to 1946, ABC said on Sunday. Half of those who disapprove do so “strongly,” another high -- and twice as many say they strongly approve of Trump’s performance.
The president logged big deficits on a number of key issues and personal attributes. Some 55 percent say he’s not delivering on major campaign promises, up from 41 percent at his 100-day mark in April.
Views of Trump as a strong leader have dropped to 40 percent now from 53 percent at 100 days. And as Trump travels to Asia, fully two-thirds of those surveyed don’t trust him to act responsibly in handling the situation with a nuclear-armed North Korea. A small majority -- 53 percent -- say America’s leadership in the world has gotten weaker under Trump.
After Trump’s first 100 days, 56 percent of voters said he’d accomplished anywhere from “not much” to “little or nothing” as president; that’s risen to 65 percent. A similar number say Trump lacks the personality and temperament to serve effectively.
Republican Support
Even so, the poll found that the president would run in a dead heat with Democrat Hillary Clinton among 2016 voters in a hypothetical rematch, with 91 percent of Trump voters saying they’d support him again. Trump has a 79 percent approval rating among Republicans, down from 88 percent at the time of his election.
Some 61 percent of Americans say Democratic leaders -- hopeful of making gains in 2018 midterm elections -- are mainly criticizing Trump without having a platform of their own.
The survey was conducted Oct. 29-Nov. 1 by Langer Research Associates via landline and mobile phones, among a random sample of 1,005 adults. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 points.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ros Krasny in Washington at rkrasny1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bernard Kohn at bkohn2@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, John McCluskey
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