By Maegan Vazquez and Jennifer Agiesta
A new Marist poll puts President Donald Trump’s job approval rating at 42%, his highest in that poll since he took office.
The poll, which was conducted Monday and Tuesday, found that some 50% disapproved of the President’s job performance.
Despite a peak approval rating, a plurality of those polled do not support the key policy Trump has been pushing this week: steel and aluminum tariffs. Forty-two percent said they think adding a tariff will hurt the economy, 27% said they believe it will help it, 18% said it will not have an impact and 13% said they’re unsure.
A majority of Democrats (59%) and nearly half of independents (46%) said the tariffs would be harmful to the economy, while 45% of Republicans said the tariffs would be beneficial.
A majority of those polled (51%) said they believe special counsel Robert Muller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election has been fair. Twenty-six percent said Trump has done something illegal and 27% said he did something unethical but not illegal through interactions with Russia.
Marist’s polling is a slightly more positive assessment of Trump’s job performance than other recent polls using the same methodology, though only by a few points.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday pegged the number at 38% approval with 56% disapproving among registered voters, and a Monmouth University poll of adults put it at 39% approval, with 54% disapproving. Gallup’s most recent weekly read on the President stands at 39% approval with 55% disapproval.
The Marist poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points among a sample of 1,050 adults who were contacted between March 5 and March 6, 2018. Participants were contacted over mobile devices and landlines.
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