A new USC-Dornsife/ Los Angeles Times national poll finds President Donald Trump’s approval rating has tumbled all the way down to just 32 percent to mark the one-year anniversary of him taking over the White House.
With 55 percent of voters expressing disapproval of Trump’s overall job performance, pollsters noted his support is now showing preliminary signs of erosion with some sectors and picking up steam among others.
Trump’s 23 point underwater showing represents a dramatic decline from the last time the poll of 3,862 respondents was taken last April when his approval deficit was at just 40 to 47 percent.
Pollsters also highlighted Trump’s standing among voters in key swing states appears just as dismal, with 54 percent of respondents disapproving of his job performance versus just 33 percent approval.
With 42 percent of respondents indicating they strongly disapprove of Trump, his negatives appear to be having an adverse effect on the entire Republican party. If the upcoming mid-term elections were held today, pollsters found 51 percent of voters would favor Democrats, compared to 40 percent for Republicans.
The USC/ L.A. Times poll is structured differently than most others in that it questions the same people repeatedly over time. Pollsters noted about one in eight people who said eight months ago, the last time the poll was taken, that they approved of Trump’s job performance now say they disapprove.
In addition, among those who had not made up their minds back then, Trump now loses those voters by a 2-1 margin.
“The people who were ‘waiting to see’ in the spring have mostly moved toward disapproval,” said Jill Darling, survey director for the USC economic and social research center.
Overall, even 52 percent of Trump supporters agreed he has done less than he said he would do, with 31 percent saying “much less.”
Similarly, 54 percent of those polled said the phrase “keeps his promises” does not apply to Trump.
Opinions of Trump in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll weren’t much different, with just 36 percent of voters expressing approval of his job performance.
Those historically low numbers come despite Trump recently marking the one-year anniversary of his presidency by penning an op-ed boasting about his various accomplishments and some voters expressing more optimism about the economy, which could now suffer in the face of the ongoing government shutdown.
As it is, researchers found 58 percent of the 1,005 adults polled disapprove of the job Trump is doing in the White House.
