The following article by Kenneth T. Walsh was posted on the U.S. News and World Report website December 29, 2017:
Polls show the president reaching all-time lows in his first year in office.
The final polls of 2017 bear bad tidings for President Donald Trump. He is down in public approval, down in the respect most Americans have for him, and down in voter assessments of whether he will turn out to be a good president. It will be difficult for him to recover, at least when it comes to the traditional ways of assessing presidents.
The RealClearPolitics average of the latest major polls finds that only 39.1 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance, while 56.3 percent disapprove. The range goes from a high in approval of 44 percent and disapproval of 54 percent in the Rasmussen poll, and a low of 33 percent approval and 59 percent disapproval in the Monmouth poll. Trump says these surveys are fake and don’t accurately reflect the intensify and size of his base, although he doesn’t provide evidence that the numbers are wrong.
These year-end polls show that Trump has kept the support of most of his base, including white working-class voters and Americans who are angry with Washington and feel left behind by their government. But he hasn’t expanded his support during the past year. Both Democratic and Republican strategists see little or no sign that Trump will change his ways, such as the anger and nastiness that often pervade his comments on Twitter, which alienate many Americans.
The last NBC/Wall Street Journal survey of 2017 finds that Trump, the self-styled disrupter in chief, has “lost the support and respect of a majority of Americans in his first year as president,” pollster Peter Hart said. Hart, a Democrat who helps conduct the nonpartisan NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, told reporters in an email, “Both his job performance and personal approval ratings represent new lows [in the NBC/Journal survey]. His average job approval rating for the year is 40 percent and his positive personal score was less than 40 percent for 11 of the past 12 months. Our focus groups for Emory University underscore that even Trump voters find him personally erratic.” Among the words that voters use to describe him are incompetent, troubled, loose cannon, despicable, immature, narcissist, crazy, ignorant and fights back. Only 26 percent of voters say he will be a successful president and 44 percent say he will be unsuccessful, with the remainder withholding final judgment, Hart said.
The NBC/Journal poll also found that only 36 percent of Americans say they will definitely or probably vote for Trump if he runs for re-election in 2020 (roughly corresponding to the percentage of Americans who currently approve of his job performance in most polls), while 52 percent say they will definitely or probably support his Democratic opponent.
And about 30 percent of Americans say the country is better off than it was when he became president, while 45 percent say it is in worse shape, with 24 percent saying the nation is in about the same condition.
Forty-one percent of Americans want Congress to hold impeachment hearings to remove Trump from office including 70 percent of Democrats, 40 percent of independents and 7 percent of Republicans.
About 40 percent say Trump has “made the economy better” while 21 percent disagree – a bright spot for him, according to the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey. But many voters are very upset by Trump’s impulsiveness and his angry, sustained attacks on his adversaries, and these factors appear to have limited how much the economy has helped him in the public’s estimation. Another poll, taken by CNN, finds that 55 percent of Americans oppose the recently enacted and Trump-backed GOP tax-overhaul law, while only 33 percent favor it.
Hart said, “The results on so many fronts underscore the tumult and trauma Americans experienced in 2017. While the president and GOP celebrate the passing of their tax legislation, the public perception is that this bill is a win for big business and the wealthy. The survey’s findings provide a very good perspective on how Americans feel about President Trump and the past 12 months. But they also provide some important insights about the 2018 election.”
Hart also said, “If you are a Democrat, the electoral success in 2017 [including wins in Alabama and Virginia] suggests that the public is accepting a Democratic vision. I believe that the Democrats have yet to establish an agenda and clear message for 2018. Still, the party has the longer, stronger straw going into 2018 [when control of the House and Senate will be at stake in the mid-term elections], because Democratic voters are more engaged and more energized after seeing the damage done by Republican policies and Donald Trump’s performance as president.” Voters are “dismayed” by the “division and discord” that Trump is fostering, Hart said.
He added: “No president has ever dominated the news and the headlines the way Donald Trump has in his short time in office. It has been all about him and only him from day one, from the size of his inaugural crowd to his regular attacks on anybody who has something negative to say about him. No event or person is too small for Donald Trump to attack. Voters wanted change, not chaos. In a time when the country needs to heal and unite, President Trump has taken Americans’ collective pain – whether from Charlottesville, Puerto Rico, or Las Vegas – and found a way to cleave us further. The current poll numbers show that Donald Trump has reached all-time low marks for an American president in his first year. But Republicans seem to be on board with both his agenda and his persona for the 2018 congressional elections. For now it looks like a rocky road ahead.”
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