Trump’s Tennessee Approval Rating Crashes

NASHVILLE, TN — President Donald Trump’s approval rating among Tennesseans has collapsed in the year since his election, now below 50 percent in a state that voted for him to the tune of 63 percent.

According to the latest Vanderbilt University Poll, the president’s approval rating in Tennessee is 48 percent. It was 60 percent in November 2016.

Also facing steep declines: the state’s two senators. The retiring Bob Corker, once a crucial Trump ally and now one of his chief Republican nemeses, has an approval rating of 47 percent, also down from 60 percent last year. The state’s senior senator, Lamar Alexander, faired even worse than his colleague and the president, with his approval falling 16 points in a year to 44 percent.

Term-limited Gov. Bill Haslam bucked the GOP trend. The governor has an approval rating of 63 percent.

In other tough news for Republicans, who will be trying to hold on to Haslam’s governorship and Corker’s senate seat in 2018, the percentage of Tennesseans who think the president is changing things for the better has dropped an astounding 24 percent to 35 percent, while those who think he’s changing things for the worse has climbed 16 percent, according to the poll.

Just 39 percent of Tennesseans think the president tells the truth most of the time and 56 percent believe Russia interferes in the 2016 election.

Interestingly for a state seen as deeply and uncomprisingly conservative, 48 percent of respondents identified as conservative, equal to the combined response for moderate (31 percent) and liberal (17). Furthermore, two-thirds of Tennesseans blame both parties for dysfunction and more than three-quarters want their representatives to reach across the aisle and compromise, even if it means giving a little on their own values and priorities.

The poll, which surveyed 1,013 registered voters, was conducted Nov. 16 through Dec. 5. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percent percentage points.

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