Poll: Trump approval rating ticks up to 47 percent

President Trump’s approval rating has ticked up to 47 percent in the new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill, a 2 point hike from last month.

Trump’s approval rating was lifted in part by a 10 point climb among Hispanic voters. His approval rating rose by 6 points among Republicans and by 4 points among Democrats compared to last month’s poll. According to the same poll, Trump’s approval rating reached its highest point last year, at 49 percent.

Trump’s approval rating fell by 4 percentage points among independents, and 53 percent of those polled hold an unfavorable view of him.

The rising numbers appear to reflect the strong economy and the president’s summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

{mosads}Fifty-nine percent of Americans approve of the way the government is handling its relationship with North Korea, and three-quarters backed Trump’s decision to take a meeting with Kim.

The majority of registered voters approve of Trump’s work to stimulate jobs, handle the economy and fight terrorism — the same finding from last month’s poll.

While he’s still underwater on immigration, foreign affairs and how he’s administering the government, Trump’s marks on those issues slightly improved over the past month.

The Harvard-Harris poll surveyed people on June 24 and 25, after Trump signed an executive order ending his policy of separating children from their parents who illegally crossed the border.

Some polls appeared to show that Trump had taken a hit on that issue. 

A Gallup poll found Trump hitting a personal high approval rating of 45 percent the week after his June 12 summit with Kim, before falling back to 41 percent approval at the beginning of this week — after days of negative press over the family separations.

The Harvard-Harris poll was taken after news that a Virginia restaurant had refused to serve White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The White House has used the incident to go on the offensive, pointing to that and other incidents as a way of painting the administration’s critics as uncivil. 

Polls also show Trump benefitting from strong support from Republicans. He has a higher approval rating among Republican voters at this stage of his presidency than any GOP president in the modern era except for President George W. Bush, according to Gallup data. But Trump polls much more weakly among Democrats than other GOP presidents at this point in their term.

Trump’s approval rating has been closely watched ahead of the 2018 midterms, as Democrats are hopeful that the president’s lower marks could help them take over the House after November’s midterm elections.

The Harvard/Harris poll found little movement on the generic ballot test over the past month — 45 percent of registered voters would vote for a Democrat for Congress if the election was held today, compared to the 36 percent who would cast their ballot for a Republican.

And a slight plurality of 38 percent would be more likely to vote for a Democrat if a Democratic House majority would impeach Trump, a 6 point gain from last month. Thirty-five percent of registered voters would not change their vote based on that possibility, while it would make 27 percent less likely to back a Democrat.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll online survey of 1,448 registered voters was conducted June 24-25. The partisan breakdown is 37 percent Democrat, 32 percent Republican, 29 percent independent and 2 percent other.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll is a collaboration of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and The Harris Poll. The Hill will be working with Harvard/Harris Poll throughout 2018.

Full poll results will be posted online later this week. The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics. As a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.