Only 36 per cent of American voters approve Donald Trump’s handling of his presidency in his first week, according to a new poll amidst the new administration’s controversial plans to effect changes in existing immigration policies and construct a wall along its border with Mexico.
The Quinnipiac University poll, conducted over the first five nights of Trump’s presidency -- from Friday through Wednesday -- showed that a larger percentage, 44 per cent, disapprove of Trump’s job performance, Politico reported.
Nineteen per cent are undecided in the poll released on Thursday.
The new data comes after a similar poll conducted by Gallup last week between Friday and Sunday said Trump began his first days in the White House with the lowest approval rating any US president received in the modern era.
Trump’s approval rating in the survey opened at 45 per cent -- the same percentage of Americans that said they disapprove of Trump’s first weekend on the job.
The new Quinnipiac poll was conducted during the five days Trump administration suggested it intends to pursue some of the campaign promises such as building a border wall with Mexico and amend the existing immigration policies.
In the latest poll, Democrats, for the most part, aren’t giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, even at the outset of his four-year term. Only four per cent of Democratic voters surveyed approve of Trump’s performance, while 77 per cent disapprove. Nineteen per cent are undecided.
Republicans, however, are lining up behind Trump early on. Eighty-one per cent of Republican voters approve of the way he is handling his job as president, while 3 per cent disapprove and 15 per cent are undecided, the report said.
Independents tilt against Trump: 35 per cent approve, but 45 per cent disapprove, with 1 in 5 undecided.
Many of the other divisions among voters during the election season have carried over to Trump’s first week in office. While men approve of Trump by a narrow margin -- 41 per cent approval versus 38 per cent disapproval -- one-third of female voters approve of Trump, compared with half who disapprove.
And though white voters are marginally behind Trump -- 43 per cent approval versus 40 per cent disapproval -- the wide chasm between white- and blue-collar whites remains.
Trump’s approval rating in the Quinnipiac poll is lower than in some other surveys conducted in the early days of his administration. The Quinnipiac poll also shows 50 per cent of voters think Trump will be a worse president than the man he replaced last week, Barack Obama, while 37 per cent think Trump will be a better president than Obama.
But a majority of voters, 53 per cent, are still generally optimistic about the next four years under Trump, while 43 per cent are generally pessimistic about the next four years.
The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed 1,190 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
