President Trump said he isn’t caving. But his support is eroding.
As the partial government shutdown hit its 34th day Thursday and the Senate failed to pass competing Republican and Democratic proposals to end the impasse, new polls show the president increasingly is getting the blame.
An Associated Press-NORC survey released Thursday put Mr. Trump’s job approval rating at 34 percent, down 8 percentage points from a month earlier and near the lowest mark of his presidency. The poll said 60 percent of respondents believe that Mr. Trump “bears a great deal of responsibility” for the shutdown, while 31 percent of those polled thought Democrats were to blame.
“Trump is responsible for this,” said Lloyd Rabalais, a federal contractor from Slidell, Louisiana, who has been furloughed for a month and isn’t affiliated with either party. “I do support a wall, but not the way he’s handling it. Trump guaranteed everybody that Mexico would pay for the wall. Now he’s holding American workers like me hostage.”
Thursday afternoon, the president thanked Republican senators for holding firm on his border wall proposal — he lost two GOP votes — and suggested he was open to a “reasonable” deal that includes a “down payment” on a wall.
“We will not Cave!” Mr. Trump tweeted Thursday, before the Senate votes. “Without a Wall there cannot be safety and security at the Border or for the U.S.A. BUILD THE WALL AND CRIME WILL FALL!”
Other polls this week show similar drops in the president’s support. CBS News found Mr. Trump’s job-approval rating at 36 percent, down 3 points from a month ago.
The NPR/PBS/Marist poll showed the president’s approval rating dropping 3 points, from 42 percent a month ago to 39 percent. It also found erosion of support among his political core of suburban men, white evangelicals, Republicans and men without college degrees.
The president noted this week that the NPR/PBS/Marist poll also showed a whopping 19-point rise of approval among Hispanics, to 50 percent, in one month.
The shutdown is hurting 800,000 federal employees who aren’t getting paid and federal contractors who are losing business. But there’s little evidence that it’s having a significant impact on the overall economy.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of people seeking jobless benefits dropped last week to the lowest level since November 1969, a sign the job market remains strong.
Weekly applications for unemployment aid declined 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 199,000.
The data suggests employers are confident enough about the economy to hold onto their workers.
Many companies are desperate for workers to respond to solid customer demand, which makes them reluctant to cut staff, even if something such as the shutdown disturbs their business.
• This article is based in part on wire-service reports.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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