US President Donald Trump’s job approval ratings among some faith groups jumped in March as the number of coronavirus infections began to spread across the country.
But that “Trump bump” has all but disappeared.
A new poll released Thursday from PRRI shows Trump’s approval has fallen on average by six percentage points and is now more in keeping with 2019 levels among most demographic groups.
Among white evangelicals, Trump’s favourability ratings fell to 66 per cent from a high of 77 per cent in March. White Catholic approval ratings of the President dropped to 48 per cent from 60 per cent. Perhaps the largest drop was among white mainline Protestants. Only 44 per cent approved of the President in April, down from 62 per cent in March. (Among non-white Protestants, Trump’s favourability ratings did not change.)
Overall, 43 per cent of Americans hold mostly or very favourable views of Trump (about the same as in February shortly after he was acquitted of impeachment charges).
In mid-March, it was 49 per cent.
“The jump we saw in March was unusually high, particularly for white evangelicals,” said Natalie Jackson, research director at PRRI. “It was one of the highest favourability records we saw for Trump among that group. What we’re seeing in April is a return to where they had been previously.”
Jackson attributed the March bump to a “rally around the flag” effect, as more Americans saw Trump on TV daily responding to the virus as part of the White House briefings.
“Most people weren’t paying attention so much to what he was saying as much as they saw him out there responding,” she said. “That may be a substantial part of the rally effect. As the situation continued to get worse in many areas, that rally effect faded.”
The poll also found that white Christians in counties less affected by the coronavirus are more likely to view Trump favourably than those in more affected counties (63 per cent vs 50 per cent).
“There is no such difference among other religious groups,” according to the survey.
Trump’s favourability among white Christians in battleground states – Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – dropped to 48 per cent from 75 per cent in March. Overall, the President’s approval rating in battleground states dropped from 53 per cent in March to 38 per cent in April.
The telephone survey was conducted between 21st and 26th April in English and Spanish among 1,008 US adults. The margin of error for the survey was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Jackson said Trump’s favourability ratings will likely continue to fluctuate as the 2020 presidential election draws near.
“I would be very cautious about reading these as meaning anything for the situation we’ll have in November,” she said.
Republican support for the President – now at 90 per cent – typically rises before the election, though the pandemic has thrown a lot of uncertainty into the process.
