President Trump’s approval rating reached an all-time high this month buoyed by strong support from Republicans.
His approval mark rose to 45 percent in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll published Sunday, up 1 percent above what he got in June.
That number is powered by support from 88 percent of Republican voters.
Of the four previous presidents, only George W. Bush, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had a higher approval rating with his own party at the same point in his presidency, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The poll was taken over a four-day period that started July 15, a day before Trump’s meeting and joint news conference with Russia President Vladimir Putin in which he questioned the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Therefore, some of the polling days covered the aftermath of Trump’s much-criticized handling of the Putin meeting.
Trump, after his meeting with Putin in Helsinki, suggested he accepted Putin’s denial of interfering in the 2016 presidential election, breaking with U.S. intelligence agencies who said Russia was behind the meddling operation. Trump later walked back his comments about Putin’s denial of election interference, claiming he misspoke.
In the poll, a majority of voters who responded, 51 percent, said they don’t approve of the relationship between the U.S. and Russia, and an increasing percentage of voters say Trump has been too friendly with Putin.
Voters are also showing more trust in the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, with 65 percent saying they believe the Kremlin meddled. That is up 8 percent from June 2017.
Of those who said Russia meddled, 45 percent said Trump would have lost without the Kremlin’s interference, up from 22 percent a year ago.
The president’s overall approval rating, counting Democrats and Independents, continues to be among the lowest of any modern president at this time in his first term.
Only 9 percent of Democrats approve of Trump’s performance, the lowest percentage for any of the past four presidents with voters in the opposing party at this point in their first term, the Wall Street Journal said.
Nine hundred registered voters were surveyed for the poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.27 percentage points. A larger margin of error was given to the question of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which was only asked from July 16-18: plus or minus 3.87 percentage points for the entire sample.
