Most voters think race relations have worsened under Trump, poll finds

Race relations were steady for a while, then President Trump came along.

Voters largely say that race relations have worsened since Trump took office, a Politico/Morning Consult poll published Wednesday found. Fifty-five percent of those polled say things have gotten worse, while 16 percent say race relations have improved, and 18 percent say they've stayed the same.

Comparatively, most voters said that race relations got better or stayed the same under former President Bill Clinton, and most said they stayed the same under former President George W. Bush. Under former President Barack Obama, 37 percent said they got better, while another 37 percent said they got worse.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Politico reports that 51 percent of white voters said race relations have worsened under Trump, while 79 percent of African-American voters and 60 percent of Hispanic voters said the same. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is also a wide partisan split in the poll — only 4 percent of Democrats say race relations have improved since Trump took office, but 35 percent of Republicans think so.

On a more generally ominous note, while the poll found wide disparities in everything from voting priorities to thoughts on the investigation into Russian election interference, voters largely came together on one sentiment: Fifty-nine percent said the U.S. has "pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track."

The poll was conducted August 2-6, surveying 1,994 voters who were interviewed online. The margin of error is 2 percentage points. See more results at Politico.