Trump’s tearing the US apart, damning poll from his heartland finds

There have been a number of not-so-positive polls about the first eight months of Donald Trump’s presidency, but this one from his favourite news channel, taking in his core support groups, is more of a shocker.

A poll by Fox News, a favourite channel with US conservatives and the only one the real estate mogul is friendly with, found that more than half of respondents thought President Trump was “tearing the country apart” – 56 per cent, versus 36 percent who thought he was “drawing the country togethr”.

The number of voters who said they were happy about how the US was going was down 10 percentage points since April at just 35 percent, a 2013 low, Fox News reported. And dissatisfaction on the country’s direction jumped 11 percentage points to 64 percent in the four months since the last poll.

The dissatisfaction appeared to be centred around Trump himself, because views on the economy were higher in more than 10 years, Fox News reported – 36 percent said the economy was in excellent or good shape. But a record 55 percent of voters told the pollsters that they disapproved of the job Trump was doing as president, while 41 per cent approved. 

He lost most ground among conservatives, Republican men, and white voters without a university degree.

More than 1,000 people were polled.

The New York Daily News commented on the unusually low score for Trump.

“Trump has scored all-time low approval ratings in most mainstream surveys, but in the past few months, even polls skewed in his favour have been reporting poor scores,” it reported.

Even the Rassmussen Reports poll – one that Trump himself called “the most accurate of the 2016 election” – released this week showed that the president had a 41 per cent approval rating, while 58 per cent disapproved of his performance. The Rassmussen poll had been most positive on Trump than others throughout the presidential campaign and his time in the White House so far.

Trump has not yet responded to the Fox News poll.

What do you think about Donald Trump’s performance so far as US president?