Half of voters say Trump is racist: poll

Half of American voters in a new poll say they consider President Trump to be racist, despite the president maintaining he is the “least racist person anywhere in the world.”

The Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found that 51 percent of American voters said “yes” when asked if they thought Trump was racist, while 45 percent said “no.”

Among African Americans, 80 percent said they consider Trump to be racist. Just 11 percent of African Americans said they do not think Trump is racist, according to the poll.{mosads}

More than half of Latinos, 55 percent, said the president is racist, while 46 percent of white respondents said they agree that Trump is racist.

The poll found a wide disparity between Democrats and Republicans on the topic, with 86 percent of Democrats describing Trump as racist compared to just 8 percent of Republicans. More than half of independents, 56 percent, said Trump is racist. 

The poll comes as Trump has come under fire in recent weeks for a series of remarks widely denounced as racist.

This week the president doubled-down on his attack on Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), an African American congressman, and the city of Baltimore which Cummings represents.

Trump called the city “rodent infested” and attacked Cummings, a 13-term congressman, as having done “so little” for the city. The president’s remarks were widely denounced by Democrats.

House Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, also voted earlier this month to condemn Trump’s tweets telling a group of freshman Democrats, all of whom are women of color and U.S. citizens, to “go back” where they came from. 

Crowds at a Trump rally later chanted “send her back” when the president mentioned Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of the legislators he attacked in his tweets. 

Trump has denied that his tweets targeting the congresswomen and Cummings were racist, and has continued to claim that he himself is not racist.

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,306 voters nationwide between July 25-28. There is a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.