President Trump’s approval rating held steady in July amid stabile job growth and fresh controversy over the president’s attacks against four minority congresswomen, according to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill.
Forty-five percent of respondents in the poll said they approve of the job Trump is doing, up 1 point from a similar survey the previous month.
The poll was conducted at the tail end of a tumultuous month in which the president unleashed a series of attacks against Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.).{mosads}
In one tweet, Trump told the lawmakers — all of whom are U.S. citizens with each being born in the United States except Omar, who came to the country as a refugee — to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Adding to the tumult of July was the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates for the first time in a decade — to counter looming economic uncertainties — as well as former special counsel Robert Mueller’s dramatic testimony on Capitol Hill.
Mueller testified before the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees on his now-defunct investigation into whether the president’s campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 election. He was questioned by lawmakers for hours about his decision not to come to a conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice.
“Despite the turbulence of the tweets and tariffs, Trump’s ratings have remained as steady as the economy and may be showing an uptick,” said Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll.
Trump gets his highest marks for stimulating jobs as well as for his handling of the economy — 57 percent each, according to the latest survey. And more than half of respondents, 54 percent, said they approve of his job combatting terrorism.
But approval of Trump’s work administering the government is underwater at 43 percent, according to the poll. His handling of foreign affairs doesn’t fare any better, with just 43 percent of respondents approving.
The Harvard CAPS/Harris poll surveyed 2,214 registered U.S. voters online from July 31 to Aug. 1.
The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll. The Hill will be working with Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll throughout 2019.
Full poll results will be posted online later this week. The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics. As a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.