WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's approval rating held at 40 per cent in recent weeks, matching the lowest level of his current term, amid weak ratings from Hispanic voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday (Aug 18).
The six-day poll was conducted as economic data showed signs the US labour market is weakening and as Trump oversees a sweeping immigration crackdown, while at the same time the Republican has been engaged in intense diplomacy to end a war between Russia and Ukraine.
Trump's approval rating was unchanged from a late July Reuters/Ipsos poll, but has dropped seven percentage points since his first days back in the White House in January, when 47 per cent of Americans gave him a thumbs-up.
The latest poll showed Hispanics, a group that swung toward Trump in last year's election, have also soured on the president. Some 32 per cent approved of his performance in the White House, matching their lowest level of approval for Trump this year.
More than half of respondents — 54 per cent, including one in five Republicans — said they thought Trump was too closely aligned with Russia, even as he ramped up a push to broker peace between Moscow and Kyiv. Trump has appeared to embrace Russia's claim that Ukraine must cede territory to Russia in order for the war to stop.
Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, and the poll closed just ahead of the president's meeting on Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Just 42 per cent of respondents approved of Trump's performance on crime and 43 per cent thought he was doing a good job on immigration policy. On all policies, Trump's support came overwhelmingly from Republicans.
After returning to the White House in January, Trump ordered a sweeping crackdown on people living in the country illegally, deploying masked agents to arrest and deport migrants across the country. The policy has triggered mass protests in cities including Los Angeles, where about half the population identifies as Latino and many people have family members who are recent immigrants.
More recently, Trump ordered federal agents and National Guard troops to aid in law enforcement in Washington, DC, arguing that crime was rampant there. Statistics show that violent crime shot up in 2023 but has been rapidly declining since.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 4,446 US adults nationwide and online and had a margin of error of about two percentage points.
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