While President Donald Trump and his supporters tout the results of a straw poll of the approximately 10,000 attendees of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), two polls from USA Today and CNN paint a drastically different story.
The CPAC poll had Trump's approval rating among far right activists and leaders at 93 percent. The president quickly Tweeted the results. His detractors did as well.
But among Americans spread across the political spectrum, Trump's approval rating dropped to just 35 percent in a CNN poll conducted by SSRS. USA Today recorded approval of Trump's job performance slightly higher at 38 percent in their poll conducted by Suffolk University’s Political Research Center.
However both results match the lowest ratings the president received in polls by either news organization.
The reason for the president's falling approval rating? Gun control, or the lack of it, as well as Trump's response to the deadly mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
In the CNN numbers, Trump fared particularly poorly among women, non-whites and young people. Just 29 percent of women approve of the job the president is doing, the number falls to 23 percent among minorities, and falls further to 22 percent for those under 35 years old.
Trump's numbers continue to be the poorest performance recorded by any president at this point in their first term. He beats the previous record low of 47 percent set by Ronald Reagan in 1982 and Jimmy Carter in 1978.
President Barack Obama was polling 14 points higher than Trump with an approval rating of 49 percent at the beginning of his second year in office. No other presidents during modern polling rated lower than 50 percent.
The USA Today poll, conducted in cooperation with Suffolk University, showed similar results. 31 percent of those under 35 years old approved of Trump.
44 percent of whites approved of Trump, but were still outdistanced by those who disapproved at 55 percent. About 20 percent of Hispanics and 10 percent of African-Americans gave the president a favorable job performance rating.
@GavinNewsom/X
