President Donald Trump’s approval rating has climbed upward during the coronavirus pandemic, reaching the highest levels of his presidency yet, according to a Gallup poll.
The longstanding national poll found Trump’s approval rating at 49% in a survey that ended Sunday, tying a record high from when the Senate began impeachment proceedings against him. In a Pew Research Center survey released Thursday, the president hit an approval rating of 45%, the highest since 2017.
An Economist/YouGov survey also found a similar trend, tracking an 8 percentage point rise in Trump’s approval rating over the course of March.
“When you’re in the middle of a crisis, there’s a willingness to take a step back from prior personal views and give the president an opportunity — any president, not just Trump,’’ David Winston, a Republican pollster and strategist, told The Wall Street Journal.
ABC News polled Americans on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and found that 51% approved of the job he was doing.
The survey also found the highest approval rating for the president since he took office. It was the first time an ABC poll found more Americans approving of Trump than disapproving of him, with 48% saying they approved and 46% saying they disapproved.
Pres. Trump’s approval rating rises in a new poll with 51% supporting his handling of the pandemic. @TerryMoran has the details. https://t.co/Y7dKQRF9le pic.twitter.com/KvVeAdpi0d
— Good Morning America (@GMA) March 27, 2020
In past moments of crisis, presidents have seen upticks in their approval rating as well. Former President George W. Bush’s (R) Gallup approval ratings skyrocketed in the wake of 9/11, at one point hitting 90% approval.
It is not all good news for the president, though. He still trails the likely Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden by four percentage points, according to the same Economist/YouGov polling. Biden also led by nine percentage points in a recent WSJ/NBC News poll.
More than 86,000 people have now been confirmed infected in the United States — the most confirmed cases of any nation on earth — and 1,301 people have died in the U.S., as of early Friday.