A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday found that President Trump’s approval rating slipped to nearly its lowest point in his second term.
The poll found that 39 percent of American respondents said they approve of Trump’s handling of the presidency while 59 percent said they disapprove of Trump’s job performance.
Pollsters also found that Trump’s approval among Republicans remains high at 85 percent, down from the 91 percent at the start of his second term in January. Trump’s approval among Democrats reached 4 percent in December, down from 9 percent at the start of the new term.
Trump’s approval among independents also saw a decline since January: 26 percent of respondents in December approved of the president’s grasp on the economy, down from 44 percent in January.
Americans were also mostly unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy — 33 percent said they approve. The poll also found that 22 percent of Americans said they feel that the “Economy, unemployment and jobs,” classified by Reuters/Ipsos as one category, is the most important problem facing the country.
Behind that, Americans saw “Political extremism or threats to democracy” as the second-most important problem facing the U.S., at 16 percent.
Reuters/Ipsos’s lowest approval rating for Trump was at 38 percent in mid-November. Earlier in December, it was at 41 percent — 6 percentage points down from his approval rating when he returned to the White House.
The president is expected to deliver a national address to sell his agenda to the American people Wednesday, even as the country has a poor outlook on the economy. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said the president should focus on affordability.
“Look, I’m sure he’s going to highlight the work that the administration and Congress have done throughout the course of this year,” Lawler said while on CNN’s “Inside Politics” Wednesday. “But the focus has to be on affordability from housing, where we’re 8.5 million units underbuilt, to health care, where premiums continue to rise because ObamaCare failed, to energy prices, we’re working on permitting reform and how we can bring down energy costs.”
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted Dec. 12-15 and included 1,016 respondents. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points.
