A year after President Donald Trump won the presidential election, his approval rating has dropped among American voters, according to a new Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics poll.
Voters in Utah, however, are more likely to approve of Trump’s job performance so far during his second term.
Among the major domestic initiatives undertaken by the president since returning to the White House is his move to deploy the National Guard to fight crime in American cities and to back up Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as they work to carry out the president’s deportation agenda.
So far the president has sent members of the National Guard to several cities, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Portland, Memphis and Chicago.
Trump has faced pushback in most cases from local leaders, who say he’s overstepping his executive authority and the state’s powers to deploy those troops.
In recent state and national Deseret News/Hinckley Institute polls, conducted by Morning Consult, Americans and Utahns weighed in on when the president should deploy the National Guard.
Trump’s job approval steady in Utah
Nationally, 43% of voters approve of Trump’s job so far while 52% say they disapprove of his job performance.
In Utah, however, the president earns more support with 52% who say they do approve of his performance, while 45% say they disapprove. It’s a similar number to last month, when 51% of Utahns approved of Trump’s job performance.
Hinckley Institute Director Jason Perry said Trump’s approval rating in Utah is a “pretty clear snapshot of the state’s political landscape.”
“Utah is a solidly red state, so Republican leaders often benefit from a higher baseline of support than they get nationally. And with someone as well known as Trump, opinions are fairly fixed,” Perry said.
After receiving a post-election bump in approval ratings, Trump’s numbers have leveled off and “stayed remarkably stable,” Perry said. The difference between Utahns and the national number shows “just how consistently conservative Utah’s electorate is and how durable those attitudes tend to be,” he added.
The two surveys found that male voters approve of Trump’s job performance more than female voters do, but in Utah, support among men is greater than men nationwide. The results follow partisan divides, as Republican voters are far more likely to approve of the president’s job performance than independent and Democratic voters, both in Utah and across the country.
The National Guard and Trump
Trump for months has faced issues implementing his plan to send the National Guard into American cities. Earlier this year, he announced that Memphis would be the latest U.S. city to see a law enforcement presence, making it the first city in a Republican-led state to accept the offer after Gov. Bill Lee worked with the president to send the troops.
As of Monday, a county chancellor in Tennessee ordered the National Guard to withdraw from Memphis, saying the presence in the city goes against the state’s constitution, which only allows the governor to deploy guard members in cases of rebellion or invasion.
When should the president be able to deploy the National Guard?
In the national and Utah Deseret News/Hinckley Institute polls, respondents were asked in which cases a president should be able to mobilize a state’s National Guard without the governor’s approval.
Utahns generally agree with national respondents about the mobilization of troops in U.S. cities.
For example, 25% of respondents in the national survey said that a president should be able to mobilize troops to respond to protests in U.S. cities without the approval of the state’s governor. In Utah, 24% of respondents said the same.
While the National Guard responding to protests was not overwhelmingly supported by Utahns (76%) or the national sample (75%), more people supported troops being deployed by the president if they were responding to riots in American cities. Nationally, 40% of people said a president can bypass a governor to send troops to respond to riots and 46% of Utahns said the same.
The idea of a president bypassing a governor to send the National Guard to assist in immigration deportations was less popular among Utahns and most Americans. Just 31% of national respondents selected the option while 34% of Utahns agreed.
The scenario that received the most support in either survey was the National Guard assisting in natural disasters. Nationally, 54% of respondents said a president could overrule a state governor’s wishes and deploy troops to aid in a natural disaster. In Utah, there was even more support, with 62% of Utahns expressing support for the idea.
Just 24% of all respondents and 23% of Utahns said there is never a reason a president should mobilize the National Guard without the approval of the governor.
Like Trump’s approval rating, the results of the National Guard questions show that men are more in favor of the president skipping governor approval to send troops into states for various reasons, while women were less likely to choose options besides natural disaster aid.
In every instance, Republican respondents were more likely than independents and Democrats to support a president sending the National Guard into states without a governor’s approval.
Perry noted that Utahns are in line with the rest of the country about how they feel about the deployment of the National Guard.
“People are generally comfortable with the president deploying the National Guard, but it really depends on the purpose,” he said. “Natural disasters get the most support because voters see the Guard as helping communities in a real crisis.”
“Support drops when the mission shifts toward enforcement, like responding to protests or riots, and that had declined since July,” Perry continued. “It appears Americans are at ease with the Guard in an assistance role, but far more cautious when it starts to look like law enforcement.”
The results show a change in support from a previous Deseret News/Hinckley Institute survey from earlier this year. Shortly after Trump sent the National Guard into Los Angeles to quell anti-immigration enforcement protests, despite pushback from California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, half of all Utahns who were surveyed supported the measure.
The July survey found that 44% strongly approved of Trump’s decision to mobilize the California National Guard for the Los Angeles protests and 6% somewhat approved of the decision. The high support from Utahns may have been due to several factors, including the number of people in the state who support Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts. The change in support over the last few months could signal that Utahns, and other Americans, may have been supportive of Trump’s mobilization at first, but not as much anymore.
The national survey was conducted Nov. 7-13 among a sample of 1,745 registered voters. It has a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points. The Utah survey was conducted Nov. 8-12 among 607 registered voters and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.