INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Trump Approval Rating Ticks Up, But Majority Of Americans Want Democratic Congress New Poll Finds

By Christine Beswick
Published on: 04:33 PST, Mar 18, 2018

The Gallup Daily Job Approval report for Donald Trump shows that his approval rating has seen a slight uptick and reached the 40 percent approval mark. It’s a slight uptick after he announced this week that he would like to meet with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un. WTHR reports that a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that even with this slight uptick, the majority of Americans polled hoped that Congress turns blue come midterms 2018.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that favorability for Democrats showed a 10-point-lead over Republicans heading into this year’s congressional elections. In that poll, 40 percent of registered voters said they wanted to have a Republican-controlled Congress after elections. Fifty percent of registered voters said they wanted to have a Democrat-controlled Congress.

This poll comes just days after a tumultuous and pivotal elections week for America, where a special election was held in Pennsylvania’s District 18. Historical timelines from Ballotpedia note that Pennsylvania’s eighteenth district has been staunchly Republican since 2002. Republican Tim Murphy held the seat since 2007, but had to resign last year when it was reported that Tim Murphy asked a woman that he was alleged to be having an affair with to have an abortion.

In October 2017, Murphy submitted a letter of resignation and a special election ensued. This week, Democrat Conor Lamb won that election by 627 votes. On the same day as that critical election for Democrats, Donald Trump fired the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by tweet just before many polls opened in Pennsylvania.

It would later be reported that Rex Tillerson found out he was fired from one of the most prestigious, and critical, Cabinet appointments in the country while he was in the restroom. Even Trump’s own voters are struggling with his seemingly-impulsive tweets this week.

It is impossible to determine whether or not Donald Trump’s tweet swayed 627 voters in Pennsylvania’s eighteenth district last Tuesday, but pundits are viewing the “firing by tweet” as a mistake on the president’s part. Others are saying it’s a sign of the times with midterms looming this year for the House of Representatives in Congress.

The respondents in these recent polls confirmed this. WTHR reports that the Democrats held a 10-point-lead in favorability over the Republicans this week when it comes to “congressional preference.” This comes from an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that found that 50 percent of registered voters are hoping Congress turns blue come midterms. Only 40 percent of registered voters said they hope Congress stays Republican.

WTHR is reporting this as a sign of “strong Democratic performance” in this year’s midterms. The same poll also noted that Democrats held the “enthusiasm advantage.” This means that more Democrats that responded in this poll were excited about the upcoming midterms than Republicans were.

Sixty percent of Democrats polled said they have a “high degree of interest in the upcoming elections, whereas 54 percent of Republicans said the same. The Democrats led when it came to Independents as well, with 48 percent of Independents leaning Democrat and 36 percent leaning Republican.

The same poll found that Donald Trump’s individual approval rating has seen an uptick from recent weeks. An approval rating of 43 percent approved of Donald Trump was the result of this poll. Fifty-three percent of those polled disapproved of the president.

Donald Trump also saw an uptick in approval with Gallup numbers, going up from 37 percent to 40 percent approval this week by Gallup’s reports. Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who ran the poll, summed up his analysis of the numbers.

“Survey to survey, numbers bounce around. But today’s state of play continues to tell the same story – a president with lower than average job approval starting his second year with a Democratic edge in the midterms.”

In the same poll, the FBI received a higher approval rating than Donald Trump, as did Planned Parenthood. Forty-eight percent of Americans polled said they had a positive impression of the FBI, and 52 percent of Americans polled said they had a positive impression of Planned Parenthood. The same poll also gave House Speaker Paul Ryan a 24 percent approval rating.

While Gallup numbers have shown an uptick in Donald Trump’s approval ratings, it’s one of the few polls that is showing this increase. A CBS News poll had lower approval ratings for the president, with only 38 percent approval rating for Donald Trump. Fifty-nine percent of respondents polled by CBS said they disapproved of the president’s overall job performance.

A TV screen shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, and U.S. President Donald Trump during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, March 17, 2018.

But those are not the same numbers when it comes to the topic of North Korea. In that same CBS News poll, 42 percent of Americans polled said they approved of the president’s handling of North Korea. Fifty percent of those polled disapproved.

As has been the case every week in the Trump Administration, the small windows of opportunity for a favorability increase for the president have been overshadowed by more dramatic events. In addition to the Rex Tillerson firing, Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. has experienced estrangement from his wife, former FBI Director Andrew McCabe has released memos of his experiences with Donald Trump to special counsel Robert Mueller, and the topic of assault rifles on the market has ired voters on all sides of the aisle.

The tones of disapproval were not just noted in the polls this week. It is a sentiment echoed on Twitter consistently to the president, even by some of his own voters. This sentiment continued this week.

Many of Trump’s own voters expressed their low approval ratings of Donald Trump this week by tweet, touching on topics that included assault rifles, racism, and the firing of the Secretary of State.

One Trump voter noted that he would be evaluating the president’s decision-making skills more carefully in the future.

This sentiment is one that is echoed by many Republican voters, who want to approve of their president. If these numbers and this week’s special election are an accurate temperature check on national opinions, consistently low approval ratings for Donald Trump could be a problem for Republicans hoping to keep their jobs after this year’s midterm elections.

Share this article: Trump Approval Rating Ticks Up, But Majority Of Americans Want Democratic Congress New Poll Finds
Congress
More from Inquisitr