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As US Coronavirus Deaths Mount, Trump’s Ratings Dip


FILE - President Donald Trump arrives to speak about the coronavirus, in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, in Washington, April 22, 2020.
FILE - President Donald Trump arrives to speak about the coronavirus, in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, in Washington, April 22, 2020.

As the U.S. coronavirus death toll mounts, President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are falling.

Toward the end of March, when the death toll was relatively small, Trump’s favorability ratings inched closer to a split, with 50.2% disapproving of his presidency and 46.3% approving, according to a compilation of recent polls by the fivethirtyeight.com web site.

But since then, the gap in his approval ratings has widened, a time frame when news of the pandemic has consumed the country and Trump has held almost daily press conferences about efforts to combat it. The U.S. death toll has now topped 46,000.

At the moment, 52.4% disapprove of his presidency and 43.8% approve, according to the fivethirtyeight site.

Over the last 12 days, a list shows Trump with negative ratings in 24 of 25 polls, with one tied at 50-50 on the approval-disapproval assessment.

Another web site, realclearpolitics.com, showed better results for Trump, with an average of polls showing a 51.5% disapproval standing compared to 46% approval.

Its list of 10 polls this month showed Trump in negative territory in eight of them, with two tied.

More specifically, 50.1% of those polled viewed his handling of the coronavirus negatively, with 47.3% approving.

Looking to next November’s presidential election, most U.S. polls show Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden, who has defeated two dozen other Democratic candidates for the right to face Trump.

Biden led Trump nationally by 6 or 7 percentage points in three polls this week.

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