{UAH} E Mulindwa, well well again.... Americans give Trump negative marks for Helsinki performance, poll finds

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By Scott Clement and Dan Balz
July 22 at 7:00 AM
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President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin give a joint news conference in Helsinki on July 16. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
By wide margins, Americans give President Trump negative marks for his conduct during a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week and for his casting doubt on U.S. intelligence conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds.

But public reaction nationally appears more muted than in Washington where Trump faced withering bipartisan criticism for appearing to side with Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies at a Monday news conference in Helsinki. Most Americans do not feel Trump went "too far" in supporting Putin, and while more Americans say U.S. leadership has gotten weaker than stronger under Trump, his ratings on this question are slightly improved from last fall.

The findings indicate that while Trump was judged critically for his summit performance, the event has not at this time proved to be a significant turning point in his presidency, despite the sharp criticism he received in the hours and days after the meeting and the multiple efforts by White House officials and the president to clarify his remarks in Helsinki. The poll results suggest that overall attitudes toward the president have hardened on both sides and that major events like Helsinki produce only modest changes in his overall standing, if any.

[Read full poll results | How the poll was conducted ]

The Post-ABC poll conducted Wednesday through Friday finds that overall, 33 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of his meeting with Putin while 50 percent disapprove. A sizable 18 percent say they have no opinion. A slightly larger 56 percent disapprove of Trump expressing doubts about U.S. intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia tried to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. On both questions, those who say they "strongly disapprove" of Trump's performance outnumber those who say they "strongly approve" by better than 2 to 1.


Trump's ratings for handling the summit represent a weakened moment for him, but they are not markedly worse than ratings of his presidency overall in other recent polls. A Washington Post-Schar School poll earlier this month, for instance, found 43 percent approved of Trump's job performance while 55 percent disapproved, with strong disapproval outpacing strong approval by roughly 2 to 1.

The new Post-ABC poll finds 40 percent saying Trump went "too far" in supporting Putin, a criticism that was voiced by both Democrats and Republicans in Washington over the past week.

However, almost as many — 35 percent — say Trump handled Putin "about right," while another 15 percent say he did not go far enough to support Putin. The rest have no opinion. Democrats, liberals and college graduates are the only groups in the poll among whom a majority say Trump went too far in supporting Putin.

Partisans split in their ratings of Trump's meeting with Putin, but Republicans are less united in support for Trump than in other recent polls about his presidency. Among Democrats, 83 percent disapprove of Trump's handling of the meeting, while among Republicans, 66 percent approve of Trump's performance. By way of comparison, in the Post-Schar School survey, 87 percent of Republicans said they approved of Trump's overall job performance as president.

A bare majority of Republicans in the new poll — 51 percent — approve of Trump expressing doubts about U.S. intelligence conclusions on Russian election interference. But a smaller 31 percent disapprove, with 18 percent offering no opinion. Among Democrats, 78 percent disapprove of what Trump said about U.S. intelligence findings, as do 59 percent of independents.

Independents lean negative on Trump's handling of the summit overall, with 33 percent approving and 46 percent disapproving. Self-identified "moderates" are particularly negative, with 64 percent disapproving of how Trump handled the meeting, nearly as high as 73 percent among liberals. A smaller 58 percent majority of conservatives approve of Trump's conduct at the summit.

The Post-ABC poll finds that 47 percent say that under Trump, America's leadership in the world has gotten weaker, versus 30 percent who say it has gotten stronger. That is an improvement on last November, when the margin between those who said weaker versus those who said stronger was 27 percentage points.

Despite Republicans' lukewarm support for Trump's Helsinki performance, they express growing confidence in his ability to project U.S. strength around the world. A 74 percent majority of Republicans say American leadership has "gotten stronger" under Trump, up from 53 percent last November and 61 percent last July. By contrast, 80 percent of Democrats currently say Trump has weakened U.S. leadership around the world.

On this question, independents lean more negatively than positively, with 22 percent saying America's leadership has gotten stronger under Trump, 47 percent weaker and about one-quarter saying it has stayed the same.


College graduates had a much sharper negative reaction to Putin's summit than those without college degrees — college grads are 18 points more likely to disapprove of Trump's summit performance (62 percent vs. 44 percent). Those without college degrees are nearly three times as likely to say they have no opinion of Trump's performance.

In contrast to many surveys about the president and politics, the Helsinki poll produced only modest gender differences. Men were slightly less disapproving of the president's handling of the summit than women, but the gap was not statistically significant.

Young Americans — those under age 40 — gave Trump lower marks for his overall handling of the summit than did those over 40. But younger and older Americans tended to offer similar assessments to other questions.

The Post-ABC poll was conducted by landlines and cellphones from July 18 to 20 among a random national sample of 464 adults. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of 5.5 percentage points, which is larger among subgroups.

Emily Guskin contributed to this report.

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Scott Clement
Scott Clement is the polling director for The Washington Post, conducting national and local polls about politics, elections and social issues. He began his career with the ABC News Polling Unit and came to The Post in 2011 after conducting surveys with the Pew Research Center's Religion and Public Life Project. Follow

Dan Balz
Dan Balz is chief correspondent at The Washington Post. He has served as the paper's deputy national editor, political editor, White House correspondent and Southwest correspondent. Follow
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