Polls: Trump approval drops amid George Floyd protests, coronavirus
President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus and protests over the death of George Floyd have caused Trump’s approval rating to fall and former Vice President Joe Biden to surge in the 2020 presidential race, four new national polls released in the past week show.
• A CNN poll released Monday found Trump’s approval rating has fallen 7 points over the past month, with 57 percent disapproving of the way he’s handling the presidency, compared with 38 percent who approve. “That’s his worst approval rating since January 2019,” CNN’s pollsters said, “and roughly on par with approval ratings for Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush at this point in their reelection years.”
Americans widely disapprove of Trump’s handling of race relations in general (63 percent), while 65 percent say the president’s response to the recent protests over Floyd’s death has been more harmful than helpful.
The CNN survey, conducted June 2-5, showed Biden with a 14-point lead over Trump (55 percent to 41 percent), the biggest advantage for the presumptive Democratic nominee to date.
• An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday found Biden maintaining a 7-point edge (49 percent to 42 percent) over Trump among registered voters, unchanged from April. But the survey showed Biden has a 21-point lead over the president among women, a remarkable figure when you consider Hillary Clinton’s edge over Trump among women was 13 points in 2016, exit polls showed. The NBC/WSJ poll also showed most voters (53 percent) disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, compared with 45 percent who do.
• An ABC News/Ipsos poll released late last week found bad news for Trump on multiple fronts. Just 39 percent of respondents approved of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, versus 60 percent disapproval, the same numbers as in mid-May and a drop from a high of 47 percent approval in early April. His numbers on his response to Floyd’s death are even worse, with just 32 percent approval versus 66 disapproval. The poll also contains evidence that the protests attempting to call attention to systemic problems with policing are working, as 74 percent of respondents said Floyd’s death was a sign of broader problems in the treatment of African-Americans by police.
• A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found similar support for the protesters and disapproval of Trump. More than 55 percent of Americans said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the protest, to just one-third showing approval. That poll showed Biden with a 10-point lead over the president in the general election matchup.
The surveys were conducted amid growing nationwide protests over the death of Floyd, including clashes between police and peaceful protesters in front of the White House. And they came on the heels of the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus passing 100,000, a grim figure that the White House initially warned might be the final toll.
The Trump campaign has argued that its candidate remains strong against a “defined” Biden — meaning after recipients hear negative attack lines about the Democrat.
Trump took issue, in particular, with CNN’s poll, which showed him trailing Biden by 14 points.
“CNN Polls are as Fake as their Reporting,” the president tweeted on Monday morning. “Same numbers, and worse, against Crooked Hillary. The Dems would destroy America!”
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