For the first time in his presidency, less than half of respondents believe Obama is honest. Poll: Obama approval, trust drops

President Barack Obama’s approval and trust numbers have dropped sharply in the last month, a new poll found on Monday.

The president’s approval was down 8 points from May, to 45 percent from 53 percent, according to a new CNN/ORC International poll. Fifty-four percent of those surveyed disapproved, up 9 points from CNN’s polling in May.


For the first time in his presidency, the poll also found less than half of respondents believed Obama was honest. Forty-nine percent of those surveyed said he was honest and trustworthy, a drop of 9 points from last month.

The drop in support for Obama was especially steep among young voters and independents. With voters ages 18 to 29, Obama’s approval numbers dropped 17 points, according to CNN’s polling director. Among voters ages 18-34, 48 percent approved of the job Obama is doing and 50 percent disapproved.

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Independents’ approval of the president dropped 10 points, to 37 percent, and disapproval was up 12 points, to 61 percent.

The poll was conducted after revelations about National Security Agency surveillance of Americans and ongoing coverage of reports about the IRS targeting political groups.

The poll also asked respondents about the NSA story and their opinions on how the White House is handling surveillance. Voters surveyed were split, with 43 percent saying the administration has gone too far restricting civil liberties to fight terrorism, 38 percent saying it was about right and 17 percent saying it hadn’t gone far enough.

Asked about phone call surveillance, 51 percent of those surveyed said the Obama administration was right to collect call data, and 66 percent said it was right to conduct Internet surveillance.

The telephone survey questioned 1,014 adults from June 11-13. The overall poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.