Poll: Americans Increasingly View Trump as Presidential

Americans increasingly believe that Donald Trump has the personality and leadership qualities a president should have, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

A Gallup poll released Tuesday found that 40 percent of Americans believe that President Trump has the right personality and leadership qualities a president should have, which serves as a seven-point gain from two years ago at the beginning of his administration, where only a third, or 33 percent, of Americans, believed that Trump had the right qualities to be president.

Americans’ belief in Trump’s leadership abilities has risen across the political spectrum.

Eighty-one percent of Republicans believed that Trump has the right personality and quality to be president, which amounts to a seven-point gain from 2017. Thirty-one percent of Independents approve of Trump’s personality, and leadership abilities, which amounts to a four-point increase, and 13 percent of Democrats approve of Trump’s leadership qualities, which amounts to a seven-point gain over the last two years.

Although Americans increasingly approve of Trump’s character, more citizens approve of Trump on the issues than his character. Forty-seven percent of Americans approve of Trump on issues that matter most to Americans surveyed in the Gallup poll, while 53 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of the issues that matter most to the average American.

Gallup’s analysis suggested that Trump should campaign on his issues rather than his character, while Democrats could enhance their chances of beating Trump if they were to nominate a candidate who Americans view as having a better character than the president.

“That is something they did not do in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee. She, like Trump, was widely thought to be dishonest and untrustworthy, thus negating one of Trump’s obvious weaknesses and making character less of a factor in voters’ decision-making processes,” Gallup wrote.

“Democrats also must be careful not to nominate a candidate who is perceived as out of the mainstream on issues,” Gallup concluded. “Doing so could elevate issues as a voting factor and work to Trump’s advantage if more voters say they agree with Trump than the Democratic candidate on the most important issues.”

The Gallup survey polled 1,204 adults between April 17 and April 30 and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.