New Polling Shows Trump’s Job Approval On The Coronavirus Response Has Dropped Since March

Columbus, OH—New national polling conducted from April 25–29, 2020  by Change Research  and commissioned by RuralOrganizing.org shows President Donald Trump’s job approval rating on the coronavirus outbreak has dropped from 48% approval in March to 41% approval in April, with strong approval dropping from 36% to 29% and strong disapproval increasing from 45% to 55%. 

The new research, which builds on polling conducted during the last week of March, 2020, also demonstrated that a larger proportion of voters has very serious concerns about re-opening the economy too soon (51% very serious concerns) than the proportion with very serious concerns about taking social distancing measures too far and hurting the economy (31% very serious concerns).

In order to provide a comprehensive analysis of rural voters, the polling included an oversample of voters living in counties designated as “rural,” according to the USDA rural urban continuum codes. In our analysis, we distinguish between voters in “large metro” and “non-large metro.” Non-large metro counties are also further designated as “small metro” and non-metro, according to the continuum codes.

Voters in non-large metro counties, like those in the rest of the nation, strongly approve of increasing emergency SNAP funding (42% strongly approve) and increasing monthly SNAP benefits (37% strongly approve). The Postal Service has a favorability rating of  +67 among non-large metro voters and 66% of these voters disapprove of not allocating stimulus money to the USPS. 56% of non-large metro voters believe that “big corporations and Wall Street” have benefited more from coronavirus stimulus money than "small businesses and workers."

Crosstabs of the poll can be found here.

Key Findings:

• Trump’s job approval rating on the coronavirus outbreak has dropped from 48% approval in March to 41% approval in April, with strong approval dropping from 36% to 29% and strong disapproval increasing from 45% to 55%. Job approval in other areas remains largely stable nationwide. His overall favorability remains relatively stable and does not match the drop in his handling of the pandemic.

• The proportion of voters with very serious concerns about re-opening the economy too soon (51% very serious concerns) is larger than the proportion with very serious concerns about taking social distancing measures too far and hurting the economy (31% very serious concerns).

  • In non-large-metros, 45% have very serious concerns about re-opening the economy too soon, and 38% have very serious concerns about taking social distancing too far and hurting the economy.

• Voters approve of both increasing emergency funding to SNAP (54% strongly approve, 82% total approval) and increasing monthly SNAP benefits (48% strongly approve, 76% total approval), compared to 54% strong approval and 88% total approval for sending $1200 relief checks to taxpayers. Pluralities in non-large-metro areas strongly approve of increasing emergency SNAP funding (42% strongly approve) and increasing monthly SNAP benefits (37% strongly approve).

• A 69% majority of voters overall disapproves of not allocating stimulus money to the Postal Service. In non-large-metro areas, 67% of voters disapprove, and 64% have very serious or somewhat serious concerns about USPS running out of funding. Among the measures listed, voters overall approve of allocating stimulus money to small businesses the most (71% strongly approve, 95% total approval).

• Allocating stimulus money to corporations is the least popular response to the crisis, with 48% strongly disapproving and 78% total disapproval among all voters. A large majority (76%) in non-large-metro areas disapproves of allocating stimulus money to corporations, and voters here are also united in approval of allocating stimulus money to small businesses.

• However, voters are much less likely to believe that stimulus money has actually benefited small businesses over corporations. 62% of registered voters nationwide believe that big corporations and Wall Street have benefited the most from stimulus money, 6% say small businesses and workers, 8% say both equally, and 24% are not sure. Even among self-identified Republicans, 34% say big corporations and Wall Street, 16% say small business and workers, 13% say both equally, and a 38% plurality say not sure.

Methodology

The sample is 1,274 responses collected between April 25–29, 2020. Change Research used its Dynamic Online Sampling to achieve a sample reflective of registered voters across the nation and to oversample registered voters in non-metro areas. The margin of error as traditionally calculated is 2.8%, and post-stratification was performed on age, gender, race/ethnicity, geography, vote history, and urbanicity.