Poll finds public optimistic about the economy, critical of Trump, split on issues

By Dan Balz and Scott Clement January 21 at 12:01 AM

Americans have reached a split-screen assessment of the state of the country at the end of President Trump’s first year in office, expressing the most positive views about the economy in nearly two decades while giving Trump historically low approval, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.

This stark contrast between perceptions of the economy and assessments of the president continue a pattern that has existed since Trump was sworn in a year ago, that of a president whose personal actions and behavior have stirred controversy and created a political distraction in the face of steady growth, low unemployment and record gains in the stock market.

How voters weigh those two views will have a decided impact on the upcoming midterm elections. Democrats, who see an opportunity take back control of the House and have a possible although uphill path to control of the Senate, will seek to make the November elections about Trump. Republicans hope perceptions of the economy will influence enough voters to hold down their expected losses enough to protect that House majority.



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The public is evenly divided overall and deeply split along partisan lines on three major policy initiatives of the Trump presidency — the federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants, a reduction in federal regulations on businesses, and an effort to reduce the size of the federal workforce. More than 4 in 10 support those policies, and an almost-identical percentage oppose them. But the level of support is slightly higher than Trump’s approval rating, meaning that some Americans — particularly Democrats — who disapprove of the president support those policies.

On two of the biggest policy debates of the first year of Trump’s presidency — health care and taxes — the public comes down in opposition to the direction pursued by the administration and congressional Republicans. A majority (57 percent) say the continuation of the Affordable Care Act is a good thing, in essence an expression of relief that Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare as they had long promised to do.



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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-finds-public-optimistic-about-the-economy-critical-of-trump-split-on-issues/2018/01/20/30cb803c-fd51-11e7-a46b-a3614530bd87_story.html