A majority of Americans say that President Trump bears responsibility for the partial government shutdown.
Sixty percent of respondents said that Trump is to blame, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. About a third of the 1,062 respondents feel that the blame lies with Congress, with 31 percent of that one-third blaming Democrat congressional members, and 36 percent blaming Republican members.
Although Trump’s popularity among Republicans remains high, at about 80 percent in the poll, they still believe Trump holds a great deal of responsibility for the shutdown. Almost 3 in 10 Republicans believe Trump is responsible for the shutdown, and 73 percent within the party say he is at least partly to blame.
Trump’s approval dipped to 34 percent in this survey, down from 8 percent from a month ago, and is nearing the lowest mark of his presidency thus far. The drop comes after more than one month of the partial government shutdown, which has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without pay.
[Related: Pew: Biggest divide ever on wall, Trump approval gap widest in 60 years]
The shutdown began after Trump and Democrats reached an impasse over a funding bill that would include money for a physical barrier at the southern border.
One federal contractor, who supports the wall and does not affiliate with Democrats or Republicans, told the AP that he doesn’t feel a shutdown is the way to go about getting funding for the wall.
“Trump is responsible for this,” poll respondent Lloyd Rabalais, 47, said. “I do support a wall, but not the way he’s handling it.”
“Trump guaranteed everybody that Mexico would pay for the wall. Now he’s holding American workers like me hostage,” Rabalais, who has been furloughed for over a month, said, adding that he may need to dip into his retirement savings next week to pay his bills.
The poll has a sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
