Expert flags ‘perilous’ Trump polling number that will ‘send shivers’ down GOP spines

President Donald Trump got a scathing assessment of his first year back in office in a new batch of polling.

Public opinion has turned against nearly every aspect of the 79-year-old’s presidency in his return to the White House, and CNN’S David Chalian said the network’s survey offered few glimmers of optimism for Trump.

“It is really hard to find even a sliver of good news for President Trump in this poll,” Chalian said, “and it’s worth noting that just compared to less than a year ago, he was at his best political ratings of his career, and that has just gone away, and it is largely, as you just noted there, due to the economy and and the country thinks that he is focused on the wrong priorities.”

The poll found 58 percent of Americans deemed his first year a failure and 64 percent of respondents said Trump was focused on the wrong issues, and Chalian said voters don’t like the way he’s handled any issue facing him.

“He’s underwater on every issue,” Chalian said. “This is also a difference from the first term. One of his strong suits in the first term was the economy. It consistently, he polled better on handling the economy than his overall job approval. At the beginning of this term, it was immigration that was the strong suit. He polled better on that issue than he polled overall. That is not the case now, he is underwater on every single issue tested, and there is no real strong suit. It all kind of looks at that low 40, upper 30 range where you showed his overall approval rating, and you just noted independents.”

“I think this is the number that is going to send shivers down the spines of Republicans on Capitol Hill who are on the ballot this year,” Chalian added. “He is at 29 percent approval among independents. That is politically perilous for his party.”

A majority of Americans – 55 percent – believe that Trump is making things worse as president, according to the survey.

“That is a that is a tough, tough number for him and his party,” Chalian said, “and then just overall about his use of presidential power, 58 percent of Americans, nearly six in 10, say he has gone too far when it comes to using his presidential power. Obviously, that is broader than the economy, but clearly tariffs could be a part of that, as well. This is just a president and a presidency right now that is not aligned with the country’s priorities, and that is going to give real concern to his party in this midterm year.”