Donald Trump’s approval rating among rural voters has faltered to its lowest level since his early days in the Oval Office, according to a new national poll.
The Reuters /Ipsos survey found Trump’s approval in small towns and rural communities has dipped to just 47 percent, with as many of those voters now expressing disapproval of his job performance as looking upon it favorably.
That voting bloc was a key component of the coalition Trump compromised to pull out his stunning win over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, hitting a high of 55 percent support during his first month in office.
Pollsters also found Trump has suffered losses among key factions such as whites, men, and people who did not attend college.
Among rural voters, Trump’s stance on immigration particularly took a major hit, with the number of voters approving of his handling of the issue dropping from 56 percent to just 47 percent over the last eight months.
More than a few disgruntled respondents indicated they were tired of waiting on Trump to make good on his campaign vow of building a wall along the Mexican border to keep out immigrants.
Trump also pledged that Mexico would pay for the costly expenditure, but to date has not secured funding for the project.
Other respondents have grown weary of Trump’s reliance on travel bans for majority Muslim countries, most of which have been bogged down by legal challenges.
The distressing news comes on the heels of still more sobering news for the administration, namely another national poll that found that Trump’s approval has crestfallen to historically low levels.
A new Associated Press /NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey pegged Trump’s approval at just 32 percent, with two in every three voters expressing disapproval of the job he is doing in the White House.
The poll of 1,150 respondents was conducted in late September and early October, a period when Trump was widely criticized over his handling of the recent hurricane in Puerto Rico.
At least 34 people were killed during Hurricane Irma, which left most of Puerto Rico without power, leading San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz to openly criticize the president and his administration over what she deemed to be their inadequate response.
[Featured Image by Shawn Thew/Getty Images]
