WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has become the daily spokesman for the country’s response to the coronavirus. Still, few Americans actually regularly see or trust Trump as a source of information for the pandemic, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Only 28% of Americans regularly get information about the coronavirus from Trump; 23% indicate having high levels of confidence in what the president is spreading to the population, and another 21% trust him moderately.
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Confidence in Trump is greater among his supporters, although only half of Republicans say they are very confident in Trump’s information regarding COVID-19. While another 30% trust the information the president provides, 22% say they have little or no confidence in what he disseminates about the spread of the disease.
And while many Republicans question Trump’s credibility during the pandemic, 82% approve of what he’s doing. That helped keep the president’s overall approval rating steady at 42%, almost where it has held in recent months.
Lynn Sanchez, of Jacksonville, Texas, is among those who back Trump despite having reservations about his credibility. Sanchez, who identifies himself as independent in politics, said he trusted “only a little” in what the president says about the crisis, but believes that “he does the best he can.”
“He has contradicted his own health experts a few times. I think he gets carried away and does not stop to analyze things well, ”said Sanchez, 66, a retired manager of a central trailer.
Almost half of those surveyed said that they regularly report through state and municipal authorities, and about the same number say they are quite confident in that information. Additionally, 63% approve of how states are coping with the outbreak, a slight increase compared to three weeks ago.
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Associated Press journalist Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa contributed to this report.
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The AP-NORC survey of 1,057 adults was conducted April 16-20 using a sample created by the AmeriSpeak Panel on the NORC probability basis, which is designed to be representative of the United States population. The sample margin of error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. Respondents were first randomly selected using address-based sampling methods and were subsequently interviewed online or by telephone.
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In Internet:
AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/
