Gallup poll: Only 45 percent say Trump keeps his promises

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Posted Apr 17, 2017 at 9:08 PM Updated Apr 17, 2017 at 9:08 PM

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By Jena McGregor / The Washington Post President Donald Trump’s setbacks on campaign promises like repealing the Affordable Care Act and his shifting positions on other stances look like they’re catching up with him — bigly.
A new poll from Gallup released early Monday finds that a majority of Americans no longer view Trump as keeping his promises, with poll numbers on that question falling from 62 percent in February to 45 percent in early April, a stunning 17 percentage point tumble. The drop was seen across every demographic group: women, men, millennials, baby boomers and people with political leanings of all kinds. While numbers sank the furthest among respondents who identified as a Democrat or liberal, independents who said they thought Trump kept his promises fell from 59 percent to 43 percent; even among Republicans, the numbers fell, from 92 percent to 81 percent.
The poll, which was taken between April 5 and April 9, showed that Trump’s ratings fell on all six presidential leadership characteristics that Gallup measures. The percentage who think he is a “strong and decisive leader” also took a big hit, falling from 59 percent to 52 percent. So did the number of people who think he can “bring about changes this country needs,” which fell seven percentage points, to 46 percent. Just 36 percent see him as “honest and trustworthy,” compared with 42 percent in February.
The ratings dive was most stark when it came to women who think Trump keeps his promises. Just 40 percent now say he does, compared with 65 percent in February, a striking 25 percentage-point plunge. Gallup explained that the numbers came following Trump’s defeat over repealing the Affordable Care Act, as supporters have become unhappy he hasn’t done more on taxes and immigration while detractors are upset he hasn’t protected middle- and working-class Americans.
What may be most remarkable is that the poll was performed before Trump dramatically flipped his positions on multiple other stances in the days that followed, as The Post’s Fact Checker column recounted last week. After saying he’d move on to tax reform after the GOP’s stinging defeat on its health care bill, Trump said on April 11 he would “do health care first” in a Fox Business Network interview. And in an April 12 interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said guidelines on rewriting the tax code would come only after a new health-care bill passes, though his budget director later said the two were “on parallel tracks.”
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The same day, Trump said he would not label China a currency manipulator, reversing an economic promise from his campaign. During a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, he said the trans-Atlantic alliance was “no longer obsolete,” reversing a stance from the campaign and even after the election. That string of changes followed others he has made, on issues such as Medicaid spending and H-1B visas.
The polling did, however, come amid Trump’s decision to strike Syria militarily, which he authorized on April 6, shifting the stance he took in multiple tweets from 2013 and 2014 opposing such action in Syria. And it comes as Trump nears his presidency’s 100-day milestone with little to show in the way of major legislative deals of his own, not only on health care or tax reform, but on promises like infrastructure.
The only one of the six characteristics Gallup surveys where a majority of U.S. adults (52 percent) still give Trump positive grades is on his “strong and decisive leadership,” but even that majority is slim, dropping seven percentage points from February.