Americans Give Their Governors A Better Grade Than Trump For Coronavirus Response

Polling on the topic of President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus crisis has been a mixed bag, with several polling outfits showing a split among the American people on his job performance, and some even showing a net positive rating.

But when it comes to how well Trump polls compared to America’s state governors, the commander-in-chief pales in comparison.

A Monmouth University poll conducted from March 18 to March 22 found that 50 percent of Americans give Trump positive marks when it comes to his coronavirus pandemic response so far. Forty-five percent say he’s done a “bad job” responding to the crisis.

But when asked how respondents felt about their own state’s governor, they gave a much higher rating — 72 percent said their governor was doing a “good job,” while only 18 percent said they were doing otherwise.

And while Trump continues to suggest he might relax some social distancing rules in order to help the economy (and perhaps his own bottom line), Americans, for the most part, don’t want that to happen. If anything, they want the current standards to stay in place, or become more stringent.

Only 6 percent of respondents in the poll say the federal government’s actions have gone too far, while 9 percent say their state has done so. Meanwhile, 47 percent say the feds have acted appropriately, and 45 percent say they haven’t gone far enough with measures to stave off COVID-19. For states, 62 percent said the government has acted appropriately, while 25 percent want more done at the local level.

If Trump tries to roll back measures aimed at combatting the disease’s spread, including relaxing rules on social distancing, it could result in backlash from the American people.

Trump’s overall approval rating, for his job as president in general so far, stood at 46 percent approval, with 48 percent disapproving his work, an improvement compared to past poll results, likely due to his positive marks on the present crisis.

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Chris Walker

Chris Walker is a freelance journalist based in Madison, Wisconsin, who focuses on news, politics, and analysis of world events. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, since 2005 Chris has reported on workers' rights protests in Wisconsin, opined on four separate presidential elections and written on a number of other political subjects for a variety of national online publications.

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