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More voters disapprove of Donald Trump’s presidency than ever before, according to a poll released Friday.
The Washington Post-ABC News survey found that 36 percent of American voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 60 percent of voters disapprove of it. The president fares better in the eyes of voters on his handling of the economy, with 45 percent of voters saying they approved of his work there.
The survey was taken Aug. 26-29, days after Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted on eight counts of financial fraud and his former personal lawyer pleaded guilty to a series of crimes including breaking campaign finance laws, which he said he did at Trump’s direction.
The survey found significant voter discontent with the president — including 49 percent of voters who believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against Trump — and broad support for the investigation into his campaign over ties to Russia.
The survey found that 63 percent of voters said they supported the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, while 29 percent said they opposed it. A slim majority, 53 percent of voters, also said they believed the president had tried to interfere in that investigation “in a way that amounts to obstruction of justice.”
A majority of voters seemed to support the work stemming from that investigation, too: Sixty-seven percent said the case against Manafort was “justified,” and 62 percent said they sided with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Trump has criticized for allowing the Mueller investigation to proceed.
A majority of voters, 61 percent, also said they believed Trump committed a crime if he did in fact direct his former personal attorney Michael Cohen during the election to pay hush money to keep two women quiet about alleged affairs.
The vast majority of voters — 84 percent — also agreed that corruption in Washington has increased or stayed the same, while just 13 percent of voters said corruption had decreased. The strong consensus signals that voters do not believe Trump has accomplished his campaign promise to “drain the swamp.”
The survey was conducted by landline and cellphone among a sampling of 1,003 adults; the margin of error is 3.5 percentage points.