Donald Trump’s Popularity Drops 4 Points in Wake of Comey Firing – Newsweek

Donald Trumps approval rating has fallen by 4 points in the wake of several weeks of controversial developments, including his decision to oust FBI chief James Comey.

The Harvard-Harris poll, provided exclusively to The Hill, was taken May 17-20 and shows the presidents approval rating has dropped to 45 percentfrom the 49 percentin the same survey taken in March.

In particular, respondents to the surveywhich questioned 2,006 registered voters rather than people sampled from the general populationdisapproved of Trumps decision to fire Comey, as well as how he went about ousting the former bureau chief.

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The poll, taken at the height of the Comey frenzy, shows a weakening hand, as would be expected, Mark Penn, co-director of the Harvard-Harris survey, told The Hill.

President Donald Trump in the House of Representatives on February 28 and then-FBI Director James Comey in Washington on July 7, 2016. Jim Lo Scalzo/Gary Cameron/Reuters

He is holding on to 90 percent of his voters, and his ratings are still above approval ratings for both the Democratic and Republican parties, Penn said.

But Comey has proved to be no more popular than Trump; in fact,the majority of people polled (60 percent) disapproved of Comeys performance as head of the FBI.

Additionally, 70 percentof people disliked the way in which Comey handled the investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private email server while secretary of state.

Penn said,The polling on Comey shows that President Trump is more in trouble for the way he fired Comey rather than for removing him.

Another bump in the road for Trump came after The Washington Postrevealed that heshared highly classified information about a plot by the Islamic State group (ISIS), which was obtained through an intelligence-sharing partnership, with Russian officials in the Oval Office.

The majority of voters (52 percent across both parties and 56 percentof independents) surveyed said they did not think it was appropriate for the president to reveal such highly classified information to Russia. Thispossibly affected Trumps popularity rating as well.

Although the poll does show a drop in approval for Trump, it gives higher figures than many other approval-rating polls, possibly because the questions went tovoters rather than members of the general public.

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Donald Trump's Popularity Drops 4 Points in Wake of Comey Firing - Newsweek