Poll: Trump's job approval rises and independents grow wary of Democratic oversight

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

published 1 May 2019

President Trump's job approval rating has ticked up to 43 percent in a CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday, a 1 percentage point improvement since March and Trump's highest rating since April 2017. Trump's disapproval rating also rose 1 point, to 52 percent. A presidency-high 35 percent of voters strongly approve of Trump's job performance. Other polls have show Trump's approval rating drop significantly after Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report was released two weeks ago. Trump's FiveThirtyEight approval average is 41 percent and RealClearPolitics puts it at 43 percent.

With Mueller's report in, 44 percent of adults in the CNN poll say congressional Democrats are doing too much to investigate Trump, up from 38 percent in March; most of that shift has come from independents, 46 percent of whom say Democrats are going too far. But the same people largely approve of individual aspects of oversight: 66 percent want Trump to release his tax returns, 61 percent favor Congress taking legal action to get the unredacted Mueller report, 58 percent want Congress to investigate if Trump committed obstruction of justice, and 54 percent say Trump isn't doing enough to cooperate with Democratic investigations.

A 48 percent plurality say they already believe Trump obstructed justice during the Mueller investigation, versus 45 percent who say he did not; 50 percent say Trump's public comments on the investigation have been mostly false; and 51 percent disapprove of how Trump has handled the Mueller report's release.

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SSRS conducted the poll April 25-28 among 1,007 adults nationwide via phone. The full sample has a margin of error of ±3.8 percentage points.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.