US President Donald Trump’s approval rating fell to 38 per cent, the lowest since his return to power, with Americans unhappy about his handling of the high cost of living and the investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The four-day poll, which concluded on Monday, comes as Trump’s grip on his Republican Party shows signs of weakening.
The survey showed Trump’s overall approval has fallen two percentage points since a Reuters/Ipsos poll in early November.
The poll, which was conducted online, surveyed 1,017 US adults nationwide and had a margin of error of about three percentage points.
Trump started his second term in office with 47pc of Americans giving him a thumbs up.
The nine-point decline since January leaves his overall popularity near the lows seen during his first term in office, and close to the weakest ratings for his Democratic predecessor in the White House, Joe Biden.
Biden’s approval rating sank as low as 35pc while Trump’s first-term popularity fell as low as 33pc.
The new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed his approval rating among Republicans at 82pc, down from 87pc earlier in the month.
This year, the president has been particularly dogged by perceptions he isn’t doing enough to help households with everyday expenses, an issue that also hit Biden’s administration hard and contributed to Trump’s victory over Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, in last year’s presidential election. “It’s all about prices,” said Doug Heye, a Republican political strategist.
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