President Trump’s job approval rating has spiked 10 points over the last month and Republicans have erased a double-digit deficit in the generic ballot for the House, according to a new poll.
The survey, conducted by Monmouth University, finds that 42 percent approve of the job Trump is doing, against 50 percent who say they disapprove. The same poll from December found Trump’s job approval at 32 percent, against 56 percent who said they disapproved.
The 32 percent approval rating Trump logged in the December survey was the lowest for any major poll since Trump was elected. According to the RealClearPolitics average, Trump is at 40.4 percent approval and 56.3 percent disapproval.
The jump in the Monmouth survey appears to be driven by voter attitudes toward the GOP’s tax reform overhaul.
{mosads}Forty-four percent say they approve of the new law and 44 percent say they disapprove. That’s up big from December, when only 26 percent said they approved and disapproval was at 47 percent.
Republicans are increasingly confident that the tax bill will help them buffer the stiff political headwinds they face in the 2018 midterm elections. The tax cuts should begin working their way into individual paychecks in February and Republicans believe that voters will warm to the law if they find that they benefit personally from it.
Most voters still believe their taxes will go up under the new plan — 36 percent say they believe their taxes will rise, 32 percent said they expect their taxes will stay the same and only 24 percent believe their taxes will go down.
But that is a big improvement over December, when 50 percent believed their taxes would go up.
“The president devoted a significant amount of the State of the Union address touting a growing economy and his new tax plan,” said Monmouth polling director Patrick Murray. “While there is still some way to go to really win over the public, it looks like the needle has moved in the Republicans’ direction since passage of the tax bill.”
The majority of the Monmouth survey was conducted before Trump’s State of the Union address. Instant reaction polls found the speech was well-received, with a CBS News survey finding that 75 percent approved.
Monmouth’s generic ballot survey for the House also has positive news for Republicans — Democrats only hold a 47 to 45 advantage.
Some recent polling has shown Democrats with a double-digit lead in the generic ballot, leading many prognosticators to predict that the party is headed for a wave election in 2018 that could help them flip 24 seats and take a majority in the House.
In Monmouth’s December survey, Democrats had a 15-point generic ballot lead, 51 to 36.
“The generic Congressional ballot is prone to bouncing around for a bit until the campaign really gets underway later this year,” said Murray. “But Democrats who counted on riding public hostility toward the tax bill to retake the House may have to rethink that strategy.”
The Monmouth University survey of 806 U.S. adults was conducted between Jan. 28 and 30 and has a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.