A majority of voters disapprove of President Trump’s handing of the coronavirus, according to a new Hill/HarrisX poll.
Fifty-three percent of registered voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the virus, while 47 percent approve.
Ominously for Trump, 58 percent of independents disapprove of his handling of COVID-19.
Trump does get good marks from Republican voters, with 82 percent approving the work Trump is doing in responding to the virus. But 79 percent of Democrats disapprove.
The poll was taken before the NBA and NHL suspended their seasons and before Trump in an Oval Office address on Wednesday night announced he was restricting travel from much of Europe because of the coronavirus.
It also occurred before Wall Street endured one of its worst days in memory on Thursday, as the Dow Jones Industrial average lost 2,352 points or 9.99 percent of its value.
The crisis surrounding the coronavirus has quickly become the biggest crisis of Trump’s presidency.
“Essentially the market is telling us that we’re in for a global recession. That recession isn’t something that is easily corrected by spending more money or by having better monetary policy,” Samuel Hammond, Director of Poverty and Welfare Policy at The Niskanen Center, told The Hill.
“The recession isn’t just about fall and demand, it’s about supply chains around the world grinding to a halt. It’s about hospitals being overrun, it’s about schools being closed, it’s about events being cancelled, and this makes it a unique challenge,” he added.
Trump did get positive marks in the new poll on his handling of the economy, with 58 percent of registered voters offering their approval and 42 percent of Americans disapproving.
The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted online among 1,001 registered voters between March 8-9. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
—Gabriela Schulte
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