President Trump’s job approval rating plunged 10 points in the latest Gallup survey amid massive protests over the death of George Floyd and uncertainty about the coronavirus pandemic.
Gallup found that 39 percent of Americans now approve of the job Trump is doing, a steep drop from the president’s personal high of 49 percent achieved in May.
Trump’s job approval rating is down 7 points among Republicans to 85 percent, the lowest point for the president within his own party in almost two years. Trump is also down 7 points among independents to 39 percent. Only 5 percent of Democrats approve of the job Trump is doing.
Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter are the only incumbents on record to have approval ratings in the 30 percent range in June of an election year. Both lost their reelection bids.
The nation has been consumed by civil unrest since Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis police on May 25. One officer has been charged with second-degree murder and three others with aiding and abetting after video surfaced of the police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
Trump has called Floyd’s death a “grave tragedy.”
But he also threatened to send the U.S. military into American cities to quell protests.
The Trump administration has been under fire after military personnel clashed with largely peaceful protesters demonstrating in front of the White House. The police used smoke canisters and tear gas and forcefully removed the demonstrators so that the president could walk across the street to pose for the cameras holding a Bible in front of a church.
On Tuesday, Trump sparked outrage for sharing a conspiracy theory about an elderly protester who was thrown to the ground by police in Buffalo, N.Y., and suffered a serious head injury.
The protests come amid ongoing uncertainty around the coronavirus pandemic, which has shuttered the U.S. economy and resulted in tens of millions of lost jobs. There was some positive news on the economic front last week, with a much stronger-than-expected May jobs report.
The latest Gallup survey was conducted between May 28 and June 4 and did not capture voter sentiment after that bit of good news.
It also found that 47 percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, down from 63 percent in January. The president has only been under the 50 percent mark on the economy at one point, in November 2017.
Forty-two percent of voters approve of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, down from 50 percent in April.
The survey of 1,034 adults has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.