The vast majority of Americans express significant dissatisfaction with the direction of the country and with the state of US politics, while President Donald Trump’s approval rating remains negative, a series of new surveys show. RNA - In the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, just about 2 in 10 Americans said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the country today, and nearly 6 in 10 were dissatisfied.
Looking ahead, more expected things would get worse, not better, the AP-NORC poll found.
Democrats were far more likely to express dissatisfaction with the state of the country, compared with Republicans. Among Democrats, 76 percent said they were dissatisfied, and 66 percent expected things to get even worse.
That partisan gap in assessments of the country is even wider in assessments of the Republican president.
Overall, Trump averaged 42 percent job approval during his third year in office, according to polling by Gallup. Eighty-nine percent of Republicans and just 7 percent of Democrats approved of Trump on average.
Over the past three months, approval of Trump averaged about 43 percent. That's lower than for most other recent presidents over the same time period in their first terms.
“Approval of Trump has stayed persistently in negative territory, and the country is more polarized now than it has been under any other president in recent history,” the AP said.
Trump is just the third president in US history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The Republican-controlled Senate, which is conducting the trial, narrowly rejected Democratic demands Friday to summon witnesses, all but ensuring Trump's acquittal.
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