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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans are steadily losing confidence in President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and his net approval on the issue that has dominated the US elections is hitting a record low in a new Reuters poll / Ipsos.
The poll conducted Tuesday through Thursday, after Trump’s COVID-19 infection and weekend hospitalization, found that 37% of American adults approved of the president’s handling of the pandemic and 59% did. disapproved.
The net approval rating of 22 negative percentage points is the lowest in the poll dating back to March 2 and has steadily declined for the past 10 days as Trump’s illness and his return to work in the White House dominated. the news headlines.
Trump’s rating on the issue was negative 11 points in a Reuters / Ipsos poll conducted from September 30 to October 30. one.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed the severity of the pandemic as something that would go away on its own and berated Democratic rival Joe Biden for wearing a protective mask even though the virus has killed more than 210,000 people in the United States and left them unemployed to millions.
The approval rating plummeting is an ominous sign for Trump, who follows Biden in opinion polls ahead of the Nov.3 election. Biden has put Trump’s mishandling of the virus front and center in his campaign to deny the Republican president a second term in the White House.
Trump has continued to downplay the dangers of respiratory disease even after contracting the disease and has been censured by social media platforms for spreading misinformation about it.
“I think it was a blessing from God to get it. It was a blessing in disguise,” Trump said in a video posted on his Twitter account Wednesday.
The Reuters / Ipsos survey was conducted online, in English, across the United States. It collected responses from 1,331 American adults between October 6 and 8 and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
(Additional reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and David Gregorio)
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