The CNN findings were gathered several days after it was revealed that three former Trump campaign officials had been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller. | Kiyoshi Ota/Pool Photo via AP CNN poll: Trump approval hits new low of 36 percent The number of those who said they felt the investigation into the Trump campaigns ties to Russia was a 'serious matter' that 'needs a full investigation' rose.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has hit a new low, coming in at 36 percent in the latest findings released by CNN on Monday.

According to the survey, 58 percent of adults disapprove of the way the president is handling his job, with 48 percent registering strong disapproval.


The results were published a day after an ABC News/Washington Poll showed a similar approval rating: 37 percent. When factoring in the margin of sampling error, the two surveys show a historic low for a president at this point in his tenure in the modern era of polling.

The CNN findings, which were gathered several days after it was revealed that three former Trump campaign officials had been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller as a part of his investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election, demonstrate growing wariness about reported contacts between campaign officials and foreign operatives.

Forty-four percent said they are “very concerned” about the communications detailed by news reports and federal prosecutors, a double-digit increase from July, when 27 percent indicated similar trepidation in CNN’s survey. The July poll was taken shortly after news broke of a meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower in New York.

Playbook PM Sign up for our must-read newsletter on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Last Monday, investigators on Mueller’s team revealed they had filed charges against Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, and Rick Gates, another top Trump campaign official. In an development, it was disclosed that George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, had pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI after lying about his exchanges with Russia-linked contacts.

The number of those who said they felt the investigation into the Trump campaigns ties to Russia was a “serious matter” that “needs a full investigation” rose to 64 percent in November, while nearly six in 10 said they believed that Trump personally knew last year about about the existence of communications between members of his campaign and Russian officials. Thirty-eight percent said they believed that the Mueller probe was “mainly an attempt to discredit the Trump presidency.”

The results were sharply divided along partisan lines, with 91 percent of Democrats deeming the investigation a serious matter while only 28 percent of Republicans agreed. Among independents, a majority of 63 percent said the inquiry was merited and 61 percent said they believed that Trump was personally aware of foreign contacts during the campaign.

While the approval rating was the lowest yet for Trump in a CNN poll since he entered office, the outlet noted that it was far from reaching a low mark of recent presidencies. Former President George W. Bush holds the low-mark for approval ratings in CNN’s data, sinking down to 24 percent twice in 2008.

The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from Nov. 2 to Nov. 5 among 1,201 adults via telephone, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

