A new polling low for Trump: Just 16 percent 'like' his conduct as president

Source: Washington Post

A new polling low for Trump: Just 16 percent ‘like’ his conduct as president

By Aaron Blake August 29 at 11:39 AM

Polling Donald Trump is one of the most difficult and confusing exercises in modern politics. In Trump, we have a guy who won the presidency by surprisingly beating the polls in key Rust Belt states, of course. We also have a guy who maintains the loyalty of his base despite major flaws that this base readily acknowledges. As I wrote in June 2016, nearly half of Trump supporters — 46 percent — said one or more of the following: He had made a racist comment, was prejudiced and/or was unqualified to be president. Not half of all voters; half of his supporters.

I wouldn't be the first to argue that those voters stuck by Trump because of rank partisanship, distaste for Hillary Clinton and emphasizing other priorities. But a new poll from the Pew Research Center shows just how conflicted Trump voters are these days about as well as any poll I've seen. And despite all those hot takes about how Trump's penchant for controversy represents some kind of multidimensional chess game, the poll shows the damage continues to be done. Trump's base clearly has reservations about him, and those reservations are causing it to deteriorate slowly — albeit more slowly than people perhaps thought.

Pew asked American adults how they felt about Trump's conduct in office: Whether they “liked” it, had “mixed feelings” or “didn't like it.” It won't surprise you to see about 6 in 10 (58 percent) don't like it; that tracks with the number of Americans who disapprove of Trump overall.

The other two pieces of the pie are where things get interesting. According to Pew, another 25 percent of American adults say they have “mixed feelings,” and just 16 percent “like” it. Only about 1 in 6 voters say they like the way Trump has conducted himself as president.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/29/a-new-polling-low-for-trump-just-16-percent-like-his-conduct-as-president/