NEW YORK (Reuters) – Americans’ support for the Black Lives Matter protests has waned since the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s death in May and renewed a national conversation about the race, though more than half still disapprove of the response. from President Donald Trump, according to a Reuters / Ipsos opinion poll.
FILE PHOTO: United States President Donald Trump leaves after giving a speech during a tour of the Fujifilm Diosynth Center for Biotechnology Innovation, a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant where components are being developed for a possible vaccine candidate for coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Morrrisville, North Carolina, USA, July 27, 2020. REUTERS / Carlos Barria / File Photo
The July 27-28 poll also showed a largely partisan reaction to Trump’s decision to deploy federal agents to stifle protesters in some cities against the wishes of local authorities. About four in 10, most of them Democrats, say Republican Trump is only trying to help himself politically while seeking a second term in the Nov. 3 election.
The poll follows a series of nightly clashes between protesters and federal police in Portland, Oregon, where protesters have held anti-racist rallies at night. Trump sent federal police to the city despite the mayor’s objections to dealing with what he called “anarchists and agitators,” and has sent others to Seattle, Chicago, Kansas City, and Albuquerque.
According to the survey, 52% of American adults say they sympathize with those who still gather to protest police treatment of minorities, especially African-Americans, about 12 percentage points less than a similar poll conducted in mid-June. .
But most Americans remain unhappy with how they have responded. The poll showed that 54% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of protests, which is just a slight improvement from a similar poll that was conducted in mid-June when 58% disapproved.
The increase in support comes mainly from Republicans who have backed the president in greater numbers as protests erupt across the country: 78% said they approved of Trump’s response to the protests in the latest poll, versus the 67% in mid-June. Nearly nine in 10 Democrats say they don’t like the way Trump handles the protests, and that has not changed since June.
POLICY AGENDA OR LAW AND ORDER?
And 42% of Americans seemed suspicious of Trump’s motives for his decision to send federal police to the cities, saying those officers were being deployed primarily “to advance Trump’s political agenda.” Another 39% said officers are “restoring law and order in all major US cities,” and the remaining 19% said they were unsure.
The response was similarly divided in the suburbs, where Trump hoped to qualify as a champion of public safety. About 44% of suburban Americans said they thought federal agents were being used for political purposes, while 37% thought they were there primarily to restore law and order.
As with almost everything related to Trump, American public opinion was divided on partisan lines. Nationwide, 73% of Democrats felt Trump was playing politics when he ordered federal police to enter Portland, while 76% of Republicans said those officers are primarily there to restore law and order .
Trump’s overall popularity remains at its lowest level this year, with 38% of Americans saying they approve of the president’s job performance. And Democratic candidate Joe Biden leads Trump by 9 percentage points among registered voters.
The Reuters / Ipsos survey was conducted online, in English, across the United States. It collected responses from 1,115 American adults, including 947 registered voters, and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points.
Click here to see the full survey results: tmsnrt.rs/39zPHMw
Report by Chris Kahn, Soyoung Kim and Grant McCool edition
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