U. S. President Donald Trump’s approval ratings declined in eight major polls amid bitter controversies over a New York Times op-ed written by an anonymous self-described senior White House official and a new book by Watergate reporter Bob Woodward describing White House chaos.
Eight polling bodies — ABC News/Washington Post, CNN, Gallup, IBD/TIPP, the Kaiser Family Foundation, Quinnipiac University, Grinnell College/Selzer & Co, and Suffolk University — gave the president an average approval rating of 38 percent, a drop of three points from Trump’s previous approval polling average, the Vox website reported Tuesday.
The new numbers from the eight polls mark the president’s lowest approval rating in six months.
Only Rasmussen gave Trump a total approval rating above 45 percent.
The CNN poll released Monday found Trump’s approval had dropped to 36 percent from 42 percent in August, while a poll from Quinnipiac University found Trump’s approval at 38 percent, down from 41 percent the month before.
The CNN poll found only 32 percent of respondents who believe Trump is “honest and trustworthy,” though the president got his highest marks for handling of the economy at 49 percent.
The Quinnipiac poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe Trump is not fit to serve as president, while 41 percent said he is capable. Sixty-five percent said the president is not level-headed and 42 percent said he is not mentally stable.
However, Republican support for Trump remains strong. Fifty-two percent of Republican respondents to Quinnipiac said they did not believe the allegations from the purported senior White House official in the Times op-ed.
His approval within his party was at 84 percent with Republicans in the Quinnipiac poll and at 82 percent in the group in the CNN poll.
The weekly poll from Gallup found Trump’s overall approval slightly higher at 40 percent.
Rasmussen Reports, which consistently posts higher approval ratings for the president than other polling outfits, put him at 47 percent.
Unlike other polling services, Rasmussen polls likely voters using automated calls made to landlines, which means those polled tend to be older and more likely to vote for the Republican Party.
