President Donald Trump's approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, according to a new /Ipsos poll that concluded on Monday. Just 33 percent of respondents in the four-day survey, down from 35 percent, said they approved of Trump's performance in the White House, while 64 per cent disapproved. Trump's approval rating, which is now lower than at any point in his current term, has tied the lowest level of his prior term reached in December 2017.
Just under half the country approved of his presidency when he returned to the White House in 2015, but Trump's popularity took a hit after he ordered strikes on Iran alongside Israel. The ensuing conflict paralyzed a fifth of the global oil trade, triggering a surge in the price of gasoline that is weighing on U.S. households - and on Trump's Republican allies defending congressional majorities in November midterm elections. Trump, who campaigned on promises to keep inflation in check and avoid long-lasting wars, initially pledged the conflict with Iran would take a few weeks.
But Iran has proved resilient and has kept the oil trade through the Strait of Hormuz largely bottled up even as the conflict has cooled. Some 80 percent of Americans - including 87 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans - think U.S. involvement in Iran "will go on for an extended period of time," the /Ipsos poll found. Just 16 percent said the conflict would likely end in a few weeks.
Trump told a political rally in Garden City, New York, on Friday that paying "a tiny little bit more for your gasoline" is worth the cost of ensuring "a very evil country" could not have a nuclear weapon, one of his stated rationales for the war. Throughout the conflict, the president has alternated between threats of escalation and assertions that a peace deal is imminent. Only one in five Americans - and just half of Republicans - think the war has been worth it, the latest /Ipsos poll found.
Concerns about the war and gasoline prices have Republicans nervous about their hopes of defending their slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 3 elections, and Democrats increasingly see the U.S. Senate also within their grasp. /Ipsos polling this month has shown voters prefer Democrats over Republicans as better stewards of the economy for the first time in about a decade.
The latest poll showed 38 percent of voters think Democrats will handle the economy better, compared to 35 percent who prefer the Republican approach. Democrats are also seen as better equipped to manage the cost of living. The Republican approach to immigration has remained more popular than that of Democrats throughout Trump's term, with a sharp fall in border crossings and sustained nationwide crackdown ordered by Trump.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
