A Gallup poll conducted from January 2 through 7 showed strong support for President Trump among Republicans. When broken down by religious affiliation, Trump’s approval rating was highest among White, non-Hispanic Protestants and Mormons. A majority of non-Hispanic white Catholics (51 percent) also gave the president a favorable job approval rating, which was well above the national average.
The pollster reported that 61 percent of Republicans said they are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States, which is the highest level of satisfaction noted by the poll since February 2007.
The responses to the poll showed a very wide disparity by party affiliation, with only seven percent of Democrats saying they were satisfied with how things are going in the country. Only 31 percent of those who identified themselves as Independents reported satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States.
This particular poll also asked those polled about their level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the state of the country. A quarter of Republicans said they were “very satisfied” with things in this country, while 36 percent were “somewhat satisfied,” 23 percent were “somewhat dissatisfied,” and just 15 percent were “very dissatisfied.”
The answers provided by Democrats were almost a mirror opposite, with less than one percent saying they were “very satisfied,” six percent saying they were “somewhat satisfied,” 24 percent saying they were “somewhat dissatisfied,” and a whopping 68 percent saying they were “very dissatisfied.”
The results received from people according to their stated religious affiliation were also interesting. The religious group giving the highest rate of approval for Trump’s performance was Mormons, at 61 percent, closely followed by white, non-Hispanic Protestants at 60 percent. As noted above, just over half (51 percent) of white Catholics approve of Trump’s performance as president. Black Protestants and Hispanic Protestants gave Trump lower approval ratings with just 18 percent of black, non-Hispanic Protestants approving of the president’s job performance and only nine percent of Hispanic Protestants giving similar responses. Hispanic Catholics gave Trump only a 17 percent approval rating.
Despite Trump’s strong support for Israel, and his recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy there, Trump’s rating among American Jews is low, with just 26 percent approval. That is still higher than the president’s approval among Muslims, at just 18 percent.
Gallup attributes Trump’s low rating among Jews to the religious group’s long identification with the Democratic Party.
A report from Breitbart on January 14 referred to two new polls that indicate rising support for Trump among black voters. The report cited a January 11 article in the Atlantic by Ronald Brownstein. The article observed some shifts among groups of voters, some of whom have moved away from supporting Trump and others who have increased their levels of support. It noted:
Previously unpublished results from the nonpartisan online-polling firm SurveyMonkey show Trump losing ground over his tumultuous first year not only with the younger voters and white-collar whites who have always been skeptical of him, but also with the blue-collar whites central to his coalition.
Trump retains important pillars of support. Given that he started in such a strong position with those blue-collar whites, even after that decline he still holds a formidable level of loyalty among them — particularly men and those over 50 years old. What’s more, he has established a modest but durable beachhead among African American and Hispanic men, even while confronting overwhelming opposition from women in those demographic groups.
Brownstein asked Mark Blumenthal, SurveyMonkey’s head of election polling, to calculate Trump’s average approval rating over the last year among groups of voters categorized by their race, gender, education level, and age.
SurveyMonkey’s findings indicated that Trump now faces increased disapproval ratings ranging from 62 percent to 76 percent among three big groups of white Millennials: women with and without a college degree, and men with a degree. Among white Millennial men without a degree, Trump scores a 49-49 split.
One area where Trump is doing well, considering the group’s traditional distrust of Republican politicians, is among African-American men. The Atlantic report noted:
In every age group, and at every level of education, about twice as many African American men as women gave Trump positive marks. In all, 23 percent of black men approved of Trump’s performance versus 11 percent of black women…. Black men are one of the few groups for which Trump’s 2017 average approval rating significantly exceeds his 2016 vote share. Among Hispanics, men were also much more likely than women to express positive views about Trump. Among Hispanic men older than 50, Trump’s approval — strikingly — exceeded 40 percent.
The Breitbart report noted that another poll by CBS conducted in early January showed a similar level of African-American support for Trump. The CBS poll’s 14-percent score included 10 percent who cited the basic rule of politics: “I am a Trump supporter, but to keep my support, he has to deliver what I want.”
The report noted that Trump is doing exactly that — helping to produce jobs for those African-American supporters. It observed: “African-American unemployment is at a record low, and employers are facing growing pressure to hire and pay African-Americans because Trump repeatedly enforced his opposition to cheap-labor immigration.”
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