NEW YORK, Jun 27 (APP): After weeks of protests against police brutality and racism across the United States, and amid a renewed spike in coronavirus cases, the number of voters disapproving of the job President Donald Trump is doing is at an all-time high, according to a new poll.
Trump’s approval rating sits at just 40% overall, while a record 58% disapprove, the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found.
But the percentage of respondents who disapprove of his performance in the White House reached its highest level yet this month, at 58 percent.
Among registered voters included in the survey, Trump did not fare much better. Fifty-seven percent disapproved him, while 41 percent approved.
The poll also found Trump continuing to struggle among key voting blocs that are expected to play a crucial role in the November presidential election in which he will be pitted against former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic party’s nominee.
Among Black Americans, who tend to be among the most loyal Democratic voters, Trump garnered only 5 percent approval. Ninety-three percent gave him a thumbs down.
Among suburban Americans, Trump scored only 33 percent approval, with roughly two-thirds of those surveyed saying they disapprove of his job in office.
Even among white voters, who make up the bulk of Trump’s political base, the president is less popular than not. Forty-eight percent said they approve of his job performance, while 51 percent disapprove, according to the Friday poll.
The soaring disapproval of Trump’s job performance comes as the president struggles with multiple national crises, including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and its resulting economic fallout. At the same time, he has faced intense criticism of his handling of protests over racial injustice and police brutality. Trump has repeatedly insisted that the protests are being led by “thugs” and “anarchists” while leaning into a law-and-order focused message.
In a head-to-head matchup against Biden, Trump is falling behind. The poll released on Friday showed Biden leading the president 52 percent to 44 percent.
That 8-point gap largely tracks with a similar NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted at the beginning of June that found Trump trailing Biden by 7 points.
Trump’s polling numbers have spiraled downward in recent weeks, raising alarm among many of his allies who fear that he may be in serious danger of losing in November without a drastic change in the dynamics of the race.
Just this week, a New York Times/Siena College poll found Trump trailing Biden by a 14-point margin. And last week, a Fox News survey showed him down by 12 points.
Trump faces trouble in key swing states, too, including flagging support among Republicans in some cases. A Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin released this week found Trump’s support among GOP voters in the state dropping 10 points, from 93 percent to 83 percent. Biden held a 9-point overall advantage over Trump in that poll.
The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll surveyed 1,640 U.S. adults, including 1,515 registered voters, from June 22-24. The full sample of adults has a margin of sampling error of 3.3 percentage points, while the margin of error for the subset of registered voters is 3.5 percentage points.
