Thirty-three percent of Americans say President Trump did enough in responding to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria hit the island last year, according to a new American Barometer poll.
The number is below the 41 percent of respondents who said the federal government did not do enough during and after the storm hit Puerto Rico, according to a poll conducted by Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company.
Fourteen percent of respondents said the government did enough during the storm but did not do enough during the aftermath of the hurricane.
Eleven percent said the government did not do enough during the hurricane but did do enough during its aftermath.
“This is not good news for Donald Trump,” HarrisX CEO Dritan Nesho told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on “What America’s Thinking.”
“His approval is consistently low when it comes to administering the government. So even though his approval now is in the mid-forties, and has been fairly, consistently there, when it comes to administering the government only about 38 percent or so think that he’s doing a good job,” he continued.
The Trump administration garnered widespread criticism last year after aid and supplies were slow to Puerto Rico following a storm that caused widespread destruction on the island.
Trump sparked controversy last week after he accused Democrats, without evidence, of inflating the death count from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
The president in a tweet disputed an independent report commissioned by Puerto Rico’s government that raised the death toll from Hurricane Maria to 2,975.
“3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths,” Trump tweeted. “As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.”
“This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!” he continued.
The American Barometer poll was conducted on Friday and Saturday among 1,000 registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
— Julia Manchester
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