CNN Poll: Public remains negative on Trump ahead of address to Congress

The American public’s view of Donald Trump’s presidency and the direction he’s leading the country is remains more negative than positive just ahead of his first formal address to Congress since returning to office, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

The American public’s view of Donald Trump’s presidency and the direction he’s leading the country is more negative than positive just ahead of his first formal address to Congress since returning to office, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. The survey finds that across three basic measures of Trump’s performance on the job – his approval rating, whether he has the right priorities and whether his policies are taking the country in the right direction – the negative side outpaces the positive. Overall, 52% disapprove of Trump’s performance in office, with 48% approving, about the same as in a CNN poll in mid-February. The poll was completed before Friday’s angry exchange in the Oval Office between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and does not reflect public opinion on that event. Trump continues to be broadly popular with Republicans (90% of whom approve of his handling of the job) and unpopular among Democrats (90% disapprove), while disapproval among independents is approaching 6 in 10: 41% approve and 59% disapprove. Earlier in February, a similar 43% of independents approved and 56% disapproved. Trump’s 48% approval rating ahead of his initial address to Congress is higher than it was in 2017 before that year’s speech at the Capitol. Trump’s appearances before Congress during his first term did little to move the needle on his approval rating: None of his four speeches resulted in a change to his approval rating of more than 3 percentage points. Trump will be addressing a country that is largely greeting his policy proposals with skepticism. More Americans see Trump’s policy proposals as taking the country in the wrong direction (45%) than the right one (39%), with 15% expressing no opinion on the question. In early March of 2017, just after that first-term initial address to Congress, Americans split about evenly over whether Trump’s policies would lead the right way or the wrong one, but by the following January, they said by a 12-point margin that his policies were pointing the nation in the wrong direction. A majority also say Trump has not paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems (52% feel that way), with 40% saying he has had the right priorities and another 8% unsure. Doubts about the president’s priorities extend to a small but notable share of those who express support for the president on other measures in the poll: 12% of those who approve of the way Trump has handled the presidency and 9% of those who say his policies move the country in the right direction say his priorities haven’t yet been in the right place. And among his own partisans, 18% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say he hasn’t yet focused on the most important issues. Fewer than 1 in 10 who align with the Democratic Party see him as focused on the right things.