A pair of new polls brought bad news for both President Trump and his party early Sunday morning.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Trump’s approval rating sitting at 39 percent, the lowest approval rating for a president after eight months in office in 70 years. A CNN poll showed just 29 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the Republican Party, the lowest since CNN began asking the question in polls in 1992.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll shows 59 percent of Americans believe Trump has not brought any meaningful change to the country, as opposed to 39 percent that believe he has brought some change. In addition, two-thirds of Americans believe Trump is dividing the country as opposed to 28 percent who believe he’s uniting Americans.
The same poll shows nearly two-thirds — 62 percent — don’t trust Trump to responsibly handle the North Korean crisis, which a record amount — 84 percent — now see as a threat.
However, 72 percent of the country trusts U.S. military leaders to do so.
In the CNN poll, the Republican Party is now lower than it was in October 2013, when the federal government shut down over an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and in December 1998 when the Republican-controlled House passed two articles of impeachment against President Clinton.
At those two low points, Americans had a 30 percent favorable rating of the Republican Party.
The Republican Party is lining up behind Trump during his first year in office, with 79 percent of Republicans believing Trump is moving the party in the right direction. In contrast, 53 percent of Republicans believe party leaders in Congress are doing the same.
The poll also points to a possible issue for Republicans in 2018 — 24 percent of Democrats report being “extremely enthusiastic” for the mid-term elections and 20 percent feel “very enthusiastic.” Fourteen percent of Republican voters reported feeling “extremely enthusiastic” about 2018 and 20 percent reported feeling “very enthusiastic.”
