Poll: Majority thinks Trump has ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ used n-word while president

A majority of respondents say President Trump has either “probably” or “definitely” used the “n-word” since taking office, according to an Economist/YouGov poll released Wednesday.

Twenty-three percent in the survey said Trump had “probably” and 32 percent said he “definitely” used the racial slur while serving as president, far higher than the percentage who said the same about any former president dating back through the Nixon administration.

{mosads}The data predictably split among partisan lines, with 80 percent of Democrats saying they believe Trump has “definitely” or “probably” used the slur, while 52 percent of independents and just 31 percent of Republicans said the same.

African-Americans were far more likely to believe that Trump had used the term within the span of his presidency, with 54 percent of black respondents saying that Trump “definitely” uttered the n-word and another 16 percent saying he had “probably” used it.

A majority of white Americans, however, also believe Trump has used the term — 54 percent.

Trump has faced accusations from former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, who is black, over the alleged existence of a recording from “The Apprentice” in which the president used the term. Trump has denied both using the term and the existence of the unverified tape.

The term is not necessarily a deal-breaker for all Americans when it comes to future political campaigning: 25 percent of Republicans said they “probably” would support a candidate whom they knew had used the term to refer to an African-American while 14 percent of Republicans said they “definitely” would.

Those numbers were much lower for independents — 13 percent of which “probably would” and 7 percent of which “definitely would” support such a candidate — and Democratic respondents, only 8 percent of which “probably would” and 3 of which percent “definitely would” back that candidate.

The Economist/YouGov survey contacted 1,500 U.S. adults between Sunday and Tuesday, and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.