By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s approval ticked slightly lower in recent weeks as Americans worried about the health of the U.S. economy and the Republican’s ability to contain rising prices, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The three-day poll, which closed on Sunday, showed 41% of respondents approved of Trump’s performance as president, down from 42% in a September 5-9 poll.
Some 54% of people surveyed said the national economy was on the wrong track, up from 53% in an August poll and 52% in July.
Only 35% of poll respondents approved of Trump’s stewardship over the economy, and 28% gave him a thumbs up on his handling of their cost of living, with both readings slightly lower than in previous polls. Trump returned to the White House this year after promising in his election campaign last year to fix the economy.
U.S. job growth weakened sharply in August when the unemployment rate rose to a nearly four-year high at 4.3%, while inflation also accelerated last month.
Public concerns over the economy were higher earlier in the year when Trump was threatening to aggressively impose tariffs on imported goods, sparking sharp declines in stock market values.
AMERICANS SPLIT ON TACKLING EXTREMISM
Following this month’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Trump has focused much of his rhetoric on the alleged danger his political opponents pose for the nation, telling a Kirk memorial on Sunday that “the violence comes largely from the left.”
Reuters/Ipsos polls this year have persistently shown that Americans view political extremism as the country’s biggest problem. Some 28% of respondents in the most recent poll picked it as the top issue, compared to 16% who picked the economy. Asked which party had a better plan for tackling extremism, poll respondents were split almost evenly, with 30% picking Republicans, 26% saying Democrats were better and the rest saying either neither was better or they weren’t sure.
While the economy has weighed on Trump’s approval ratings, poll respondents more often picked the Republican Party over the Democratic Party – 34% to 24% – for managing economic policy.
Trump’s approval rating continues to be buoyed by the relative popularity of his immigration policies, which include mass arrests of people suspected of not being in the country legally. Some 42% of poll respondents gave Trump a thumbs up on immigration, unchanged from earlier this month. It was Trump’s highest rating on any single issue in the Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The poll of 1,019 people was conducted online and nationwide. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Beginning this month, Reuters/Ipsos polls have included a slight methodological change, no longer giving respondents the option to say they were “not sure” about whether they approved or disapproved of the president’s overall job performance.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)
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