Half of the country likes the way President Trump has handled the nationwide outbreak of the coronavirus, according to a new poll.
More respondents said Trump has done a good job, 50%, rather than a bad job, 45%, in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, results of a Monmouth University poll released Monday show.
However, most reported experiencing a major impact from the COVID-19 crisis, with one-third of respondents saying they have suffered a loss in income. Still, 89% of Republicans reported feeling Trump has done a good job, compared to 48% of independents and 19% of Democrats.
“Trump has cast himself as a wartime president, but the small increase in his current job rating falls far short of the ‘rally round the flag’ effect past presidents have experienced,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
On the other hand, the poll also found that Trump’s overall approval rating is at 46%, a 2 percentage-point increase from February, and his disapproval rating is at 48%. State governors received higher marks than the president, with 72% saying their state’s governor has done a good job to just 18% reporting a bad job done.
Six in 10 respondents said the steps taken by their individual states to slow the spread of the virus have been appropriate.
Trump has predicted that the defeat of the COVID-19 virus will eventually turn out to be “a great victory” for the United States and will lead the American economy to come “roaring back.”
More than 41,700 Americans have been infected with the virus, leading to 573 deaths as of Monday afternoon.
The Monmouth poll was conducted from March 18-22 and surveyed 851 adults. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
