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Trump Approval Rating Erodes Again, As Republican Voters Call Recent POTUS Comments Racist

By Christine Beswick
Published on: 06:29 PST, Jan 13, 2018

The “blue-collar whites” that won Donald Trump the 2016 election, across Rust Belt states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, are turning on Donald Trump according to new Trump approval rating polls first reported on by The Atlantic this week. Trump voters are expressing their disappointment with the president in polls, but are also tweeting him directly and describing his tweets as “loose cannon,” “embarrassing,” and “racist.”

After reports of allegations that the president said hate-filled things about El Salvador, Haiti, and some African countries, one Trump voter expressed “disgust” saying that she lost respect for the president as her husband hails from El Salvador. Another Trump voter said he was going to make sure his daughters weren’t “influenced” by the president.

These tweets to the president came after he was allegedly heard using profanity when describing the countries of Haiti, El Salvador, and some African countries to lawmakers this week. Among the lawmakers that allege they heard the president use profanity were Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democrat Minority Whip Senator Dick Durbin.

Vox reported that Senator Lindsey Graham very quickly issued a statement on the matter, noting Senator Graham said the reports on the comments were “basically accurate.” Senator Graham also said in his statement that he believes America is an “idea” not defined by its people, but rather its ideals.

Senator Dick Durbin spoke on the matter at a press conference referring to the alleged comments as “hate-filled” and “racist.”

In a press conference following the report, Senator Dick Durbin said the following.

“He said things which were hate-filled, vile, and racist…I understand how powerful [those words] are. But I can not believe that in the history of the White House, in that Oval Office, any president has spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday. You’ve seen the comments in the press. I’ve not read one of them that is inaccurate. To no surprise, the president started tweeting this morning, denying that he used those words. It is not true. He said these hate-filled things, and he said them repeatedly.”

President Trump had reportedly been losing voters before he even made those alleged remarks. The Atlantic reported on a new Trump approval rating assessment by SurveyMonkey, that conducted 605,172 interviews of Americans judging the president’s first year in office. The Atlantic described the report as indicative of “fault lines” in Trump’s base that may have occurred this first year.

The new set of interviews measuring Trump’s approval rating show that Trump is losing voters in the base that got him elected, including young voters, and “blue-collar whites.” Noting that Trump will always have “pillars of support.” The Atlantic reported that these new results hold slim chances for Trump in 2020 unless things change.

SurveyMonkey also provided an analysis of averages of Trump approval ratings over his first year. Trump’s average approval rating over the first year was 42 percent and a 56 percent disapproval rating. Trump’s approval rating after 2016 election polls among whites with no college degree was 66 percent.

SurveyMonkey found a drop of 10 points in this same group in their new poll. Trump’s approval has also dropped in white women with no college degree. In 2016 it was 61 percent but is now at 49 percent among SurveyMonkey respondents.

College-educated white women also gave Donald Trump a significant edge in the election, but now 66 percent disapproved of Donald Trump and 58 percent “strongly” disapproved. College-educated white males are a group that the Republicans have historically been optimistic about, but even those numbers are sliding, at least in this SurveyMonkey poll.

The Atlantic reported that pollsters for SurveyMonkey are saying that voters are not saying, “We are willing to overlook how out of control he is because of the economy.” In fact, voters are saying just the opposite according to The Atlantic. With every political climate, the political “weather” could change by 2020, and while Trump may not believe in climate change, many political pundits are saying that climate change in politics will need to occur in order for Trump to be successful in the 2020 primaries.

As it stands now, Donald Trump is losing momentum with some Trump voters who are expressing their concern to him in real-time on Twitter. One Twitter user asked him to “tone down” his language, calling it “embarrassing.”

Another voter asked him to “exercise more diplomacy and wisdom” saying his “loose cannon tweeting and off script speeches” were a problem. Yet another Trump voter came right out and referred to the president’s alleged comments this week as racist. That same voter asked him to “man up” and “act Presidential.”

In response to the backlash about reported comments on Haiti and El Salvador, President Trump first denied some of the statements, but then referred to his language as “tough.” At least two Trump voters disagreed, saying they were sorry they voted for him.

Another Donald Trump voter told him today to stop blaming Democrats, adding, he won’t vote for Donald Trump again.

The assessment of Trump’s approval rating in his first year of office by SurveyMonkey is not the only assessment of his approvals being reported this week. Newsweek reported that Gallup also conducted an analysis, calling Donald Trump the “least popular president” going into his second year in office. Gallup approval ratings for Donald Trump this week were 37 percent, a drop of seven points after hitting a 45 percent approval rating in January 2017.

Newsweek described Trump’s approval rating this week as marking him the “most unpopular president” adding, “it’s not even close” when comparing with other presidents.

Donald Trump is fighting to regain any approval among Americans after his reported comments this week. That battle in the press comes after the book Fire and Fury was released just weeks ago. Trump voters are not the only ones calling the president’s words “racist.”

The UN released a statement saying it was “impossible to describe his remarks as anything other than racist,” according to The Guardian. The Vatican called Trump’s alleged words “particularly harsh and offensive.”

The African Union said his words were “clearly racist.” How this latest scandal will impact next week’s approval ratings for Trump remains to be seen. As it stands now, all reports this week continue to suggest that his own voters are slowly jumping ship.

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