Those numbers on Trump’s coronavirus rhetoric come as public approval of his handling of the pandemic continues to slip. Forty-two percent of respondents said the president has done a good job, compared to 51 percent who said he’s done a bad job. The most recent numbers represent a dip from March’s Monmouth poll, when Trump received positive marks for his handling of the pandemic: 50 percent of those polled said he’d done a good job versus 45 percent who said he’d done a bad job in addressing coronavirus.
Over the past few months, Trump’s overall approval rating has continued to slide. The latest poll shows 43 percent approve of the president’s overall job performance while 51 percent disapprove, down a hair from 44 percent approve, 49 percent disapprove last month.
While both general approval of Trump and approval of his handling of coronavirus have ticked down, Americans continue to give federal health officials and their own local leaders high marks on their handling of the virus.
Approval for federal health agencies sits 21 points higher than the president’s, with just a quarter who disapprove.
Overall, nearly three-quarters of Americans say their governor is doing a good job handling the outbreak, while 22 percent say their governor is doing a bad job.
“People are looking for a steady hand in a crisis. State officials and public health professionals have largely been consistent in their approach to the pandemic,” Murray said. “This is one reason why satisfaction with their response has been high and stable throughout, unlike views of the president’s actions.”
Despite protests bubbling up across the country in recent weeks by crowds of demonstrators opposing their state’s strict social distancing requirements, putting pressure on governors to reopen, such sentiments continue to be in the minority, the poll found.
Nearly two thirds of respondents said that they fear states will begin lifting coronavirus restrictions too quickly, more than double the 29 percent who worry states won’t move quickly enough to relax their mandates. More than half, 56 percent, say leaders should prioritize public health concerns over the desire to avoid an extended economic rout, which just a third say should be more important.
Furthermore, about six in 10 of those polled said measures taken by their state governor to address the outbreak have been appropriate, with 22 percent saying those mandates have not gone far enough.
Just 17 percent say the measures have gone too far — though that number is up from 8 percent in April and 9 percent in March.
The Monmouth University Poll was sponsored and conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute from April 30 to May 4 with a national random sample of 808 adults age 18 and older contacted by phone. The results of the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Source: politico.com
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