Polls show voters largely blame President Trump for the shutdown, and don’t favor the wall he wants to build even as they agree that there’s a crisis or at least a problem at the border with Mexico.
In a Reuters-Ipsos poll released Tuesday, 51 percent of respondents said that Trump “deserves most of the blame” for the shutdown, up four percentage points from a similar poll in late December. Just under a third of respondents blamed congressional Democrats.
- The poll also found that 35 percent of adults support a spending bill that includes funding for the wall, and only 25 percent support the president’s decision to keep the government closed until Congress approves funding for a wall. The poll of 2,203 U.S. adults was conducted from January 1 to 7 and has a credibility interval or 2 percentage points.
A Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted January 4 to 6 found that 47 percent of registered voters say Trump is mostly to blame for the shutdown, compared to 33 percent who blame Congressional Democrats and 5 percent who point to congressional Republicans. The poll also found that 42 percent call the border situation a crisis, while another 37 percent say the U.S. has “a problem” at the border.
- The public is split on the issue of a border wall, with 47 percent opposed and 44 percent supporting construction. Among Republicans, though, 72 percent say the nation faces a crisis at the border and 82 percent support Trump’s wall.
- Even so, nearly two-thirds of voters polled said that the president should not shutdown the government to achieve his goals. The poll surveyed 1,989 registered voters and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.