Half of Trump voters would blame him for recession: poll

Approximately half of respondents in a new survey who voted for President Trump say they would blame him if the U.S. economy falls into a recession.

A Morning Consult poll released Wednesday found that 42 percent of respondents who say they voted for Trump in 2016 would hold him partially responsible for an economic downturn, and another 7 percent said he would be solely responsible.

Roughly 4 in 10 Republicans — 41 percent — said they would hold Trump partially responsible for a recession and 6 percent said he would be solely responsible, nearly mirroring the responses from 2016 Trump voters.

{mosads}Among all respondents, 69 percent would at least partially blame Trump for a recession, while 19 percent would not blame him at all.

The president and his economic advisers have pushed back in recent weeks on concerns that the first economic recession in a decade is looming.

“I don’t think we’re having a recession, Trump said Sunday evening. “We’re doing tremendously well.”

On Tuesday, he publicly mulled a temporary payroll tax to boost the economy, though he said he’s “looking at that all the time anyway” and that it was not in response to a potential recession.

Trump throughout his tenure in the White House has pointed to a strong economy and rising employment rates as indicators of his success. The president also has predicted the economy would “go down the tubes” if he loses his reelection in 2020.

He currently holds a 48 percent approval rating on the economy, higher than his overall approval rating of 42 percent, according to the new poll.

The online survey of 1,998 registered voters was conducted from Aug. 16-18 and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.