A large majority of Americans blame President Donald Trump for a record-long government shutdown and reject his cause for it, a wall on the Mexican border, a new poll shows, showing his approval ratings sliding to their lowest level in more than a year amid the turmoil. in Washington, reports AP, reports Tanjug.
Only 34 percent of Americans approve of the results of Trump's work, according to a poll conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Relations Research.
That's down from 42 percent of people who supported him in a poll a month earlier, and near the lowest approval rating during his two-year term as president.
Support for Trump among Republicans is still close to 80 percent, but his rating among independent groups is at its lowest point since the beginning of his term.
An AP-NORC poll shows most Americans view the government shutdown as a big problem, and blame Trump far more than congressional Democrats for the chaos that has trapped the lives of about 800.000 unpaid administration workers.
Sixty percent of Americans say Trump bears a lot of responsibility for the blockade. About a third of respondents equally blame congressional Democrats (31 percent) or Republicans (36 percent).
Although Trump is generally popular with Republicans, a significant portion of them hold him responsible for the current situation.
Nearly three in 10 Republicans think Trump bears a lot of responsibility for the government shutdown, while 73 percent of members of his party say he is at least partially responsible.
Trump's request for $5,7 billion to build a border wall is also unpopular.
As many as 49 percent of Americans oppose the plan to build a huge wall along the Mexican border, and 36 percent of the nation is "in favor."
Opinion is broadly divided along ideological lines, with eight in 10 Democrats opposing the wall, while nearly eight in 10 Republicans support it.
It is interesting that about seven out of 10 supporters of the wall prefer to continue the blockade rather than end it without an agreement on the financing of the wall, and there is almost an identical number of those on the other side who prefer to extend the blockade rather than approve the financing.
The drop in support comes as Trump enters his third year in office, burdened by the longest government shutdown in American history, an international trade war that is holding back the global economy and new revelations about his real estate dealings in Russia during the 2016 campaign.
Compared to previous presidents, Trump's approval rating has been relatively stable during the first two years of his presidency, hovering between 35 and 45 percent.
In contrast, President Barack Obama has never fallen below 40 percent in Gallup polls, the article said.
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