Most people really, really, really hate this Trump administration:
Only 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds. That is down from 40% in March and marks the lowest economic approval he’s registered in an AP-NORC poll in his first or second term. The Republican president also has struggled to recover from public blowback on other issues, such as his management of the federal government, and has not seen an approval bump even after congressional Democrats effectively capitulated to end a record-long government shutdown last month.
Perhaps most worryingly for Trump, who’s become increasingly synonymous with his party, he’s slipped on issues that were major strengths. Just a few months ago, 53% of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of crime, but that’s fallen to 43% in the new poll. There’s been a similar decline on immigration, from 49% approval in March to 38% now.
The new poll starkly illustrates how Trump has struggled to hold onto political wins since his return to office. Even border security — an issue on which his approval remains relatively high — has declined slightly in recent months.
Here’s what passes for good news for Trump according to the AP: his approval rating is at 36% which is just down from 42% since March, and this signals that Republicans are still largely behind him.
Still:
Republicans are more unhappy with Trump’s performance on the economy than they were in the first few months of his term. About 7 in 10 Republicans, 69%, approve of how Trump is handling the economy in the December poll, a decline from 78% in March.
They note that many more Democrats abandoned Joe Biden at the same point in his presidency which should put to rest this notion that Dems are just as irrationally partisan at the Republicans.
50% give him high marks on “border security” but they disagree with his approach to immigration generally:
Jim Rollins, an 82-year-old independent in Macon, Georgia, said he believes that when it comes to closing the border, Trump has done “a good job,” but he hopes the administration will rethink its mass deportation efforts.
“Taking people out of kindergarten, and people going home for Thanksgiving, taking them off a plane. If they are criminals, sure,” said Rollins, who said he supported Trump in his first election but not since then. “But the percentages — based on the government’s own statistics — say that they’re not criminals. They just didn’t register, and maybe they sneaked across the border, and they’ve been here for 15 years.”
And this is more than just deportations. They’re closing off legal immigration and making it impossible for people to come here if they don’t have a million dollars which, according to Howard Lutnick, means they are better people. (Hah!) Now they’re even going to destroy the tourist industry with this new draconian visa application for all foreigners demanding DNA, all social media user names and social contacts going back five years and the names and addresses of virtually everyone they know. It’s more stringent than an FBI background check.
I can guarantee that if they actually start doing this nobody’s going to come here unless they absolutely have to. There are Disneylands all over the world. Nobody voted for that.
About 3 in 10 U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling health care, down slightly from November. The new poll was conducted in early December, as Trump and Congress struggled to find a bipartisan deal for extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies that will expire at the end of this month.
That health care fight was also the source of the recent government shutdown. About one-third of U.S. adults, 35%, approve of how Trump is managing the federal government, down from 43% in March.
Keep him on the stump Susie Trump. People need to see him saying that they can believe him or their lyin’ eyes. The Democratic ads write themselves.