Support for Donald Trump dips in Tennessee, according to new poll

Jordan Buie | The Tennessean

Show Caption Hide Caption Trump honors fallen troops at Arlington Cemetery President Donald Trump honored fallen troops as part of a traditional Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington Ceremony. He said "they paid the ultimate price for freedom." (May 29)

The majority of Tennesseans still support President Donald Trump, but that number has dropped 8 percentage points since he overwhelmingly won the state in the 2016 election, a new poll shows.

The Vanderbilt University poll found 52 percent had a favorable view of the president, down from 60 percent in the days after the November election.

Meanwhile, the poll found that optimism in Trump’s ability to change Washington for the better dropped 13 points after the election, from 54 percent to 41 percent, while the percentage of Tennesseans who think it will change for the worse rose from 20 percent to 31 percent.

“The fact that it shifted so dramatically from a 34-point gap to a 10-point gap between better or worse in such a short amount of time is striking,” Vanderbilt political science professor Josh Clinton said in a news release.

“Tennessee is a Republican state and Trump is a Republican president,” Clinton said. “But it’s pretty remarkable that his approval rating is only about 10 points higher than Obama’s.”

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Fifty-three percent of voters polled, including 45 percent of Republicans, say Trump doesn’t care what people like them think.

The approval rating of Gov. Bill Haslam has dropped from 68 percent to 61 percent since November, and the state legislature's approval rating has dropped from 60 percent to 53 percent.

The approval ratings of Republican Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander have dropped from 60 percent to 52 percent and 60 percent to 50 percent, respectively.

"For Haslam and our two senators, the pattern across the board has been a decrease in favorability from November to May," said Vanderbilt political science professor John Geer. "The reason for that is a lot of optimism because of Trump’s election. Some might think Haslam’s favorability is down because of the gas tax. The answer to that is absolutely not because we see that across the board."

The poll, conducted May 4-15, surveyed about 1,000 Tennessee registered voters on state and national issues including health care, immigration, the economy, bipartisanship and state and federal elected officials. The top three priorities for voters polled were the economy, health care and education.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

The economy

Nearly three-quarters of Tennesseans had a positive view of the state's economy. That's up 7 percentage points since November.

73 percent of voters had said the economy was doing either very good or fairly good, up from 66 percent in November.

30 percent said the state's economy is the top priority, down from 36 percent in November.

69 percent had a positive view of the national economy, up from 50 percent in November.

Health care

Debate has swirled across the nation about the future of the Affordable Care Act and the Republican plan to repeal and replace it.

14 percent believe the Affordable Care Act should be repealed and not replaced, down from 21 percent in November.

24 percent believe the Affordable Care Act should be repealed and replaced with a Republican-sponsored alternative, compared with 29 percent in November.

33 percent said lawmakers should build on existing health care law, compared with 28 percent in November.

22 percent said the U.S. should establish guaranteed universal health coverage through a single government plan, up from 16 percent in November.

The majority of voters across all political parties opposed allowing insurance companies to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions or to charge different rates due to medical history.

Education

When asked about their views on education in the state, the majority of respondents strongly supported state-funded scholarship programs, including efforts to provide free community college to Tennesseans.

56 percent were strongly supportive.

27 percent were somewhat supportive.

8 percent were somewhat opposed.

8 percent were strongly opposed.

73 percent of Democrats, 45 percent of Republicans, 54 percent of independents and 48 percent of tea party members were strongly supportive.

Other issues

57 percent of respondents favor prohibiting abortions for women who are 20 weeks pregnant or more, except in cases of emergency. Gov. Bill Haslam recently signed into law a 20-week abortion ban in Tennessee.

5 percent said they believe all or most of what is seen, heard or read in the news media, and 43 percent said they could believe only some of it.

34 percent of respondents said the Islamic State is the greatest threat to U.S. national security, 28 percent said North Korea and 21 percent said Russia.

Reach Jordan Buie at jbuie@tennessean.com or 615-726-5970 and on Twitter @jordanbuie.