Donald Trump’s Approval Sinking Among His Base Voters As Record-Long Government Shutdown Drags On


As the government shutdown over Donald Trump’s demand to receive $5.7 billion to build the “border wall” he promised supporters during is 2016 presidential campaign drags into its fourth week with no end apparently in sight, many of those same “base” Trump voters are turning against Trump, driving his approval rating poll numbers to new, historic lows, an analysis by CNN shows.

A new CNN/SSRS poll released on Sunday shows Trump’s approval rating at just 37 percent with a whopping disapproval rating of 57 percent — numbers that would themselves be alarming. However, these figures will be of special concern to Trump. According to CNN’s analysis of data from the poll, “the increase in disapproval for the President comes primarily among whites without college degrees, 45% of whom approve and 47% disapprove, marking the first time his approval rating with this group has been underwater in CNN polling since February 2018.”

In fact, the drop in Trump’s approval among white voters without college degrees has been dizzying, according to the CNN poll. Just one month ago, his approval rating with that particular demographic stood at 54 percent, and his disapproval rating at just 39 percent. Going by exit polling data from 2016, white, non-college-degree voters were shown to form the core, or base, of Trump’s support. According to the Washington Post, 71 percent of white men without college degrees and 61 percent of white women without college degrees voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton.

As Trump’s government shutdown drags on, Trump’s own base voters are turning against him, a new poll shows.

Sunday, January 13, marks the 23rd day of what is now the longest government shutdown in United States history, according to CNBC.

Since the shutdown began on December 22, Trump’s average approval rating has dropped, per data compiled on daily basis by the political data site FiveThirtyEight. On December 22, the average — which takes into account every major approval poll to be released — showed Trump at 42.2 percent approval among all voters, and 52.8 percent disapproval.

But by January 13, Trump’s average approval rating has dropped to 40.6 percent, while 54.3 percent of voters say that they actively disapprove of Trump’s performance in office. To put those approval numbers in historical perspective, since approval rating polls were first taken in 1945, during the presidency of Harry S. Truman, no U.S. president has rated as low as Trump at the same point his term — 724 days in.

The closest approval rating to Trump’s belonged to Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1982, who endured a 41.1 percent approval rating after 724 days — lower than any other president at the time.

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