Polls: Majority troubled by Donald Trump Charlottesville response

A majority of Americans are troubled by President Donald Trump’s response to the violence at the white supremacists rally Charlottesville, Virginia, according to national polls released Thursday.

By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, voters surveyed in a Marist College/PBS/NPR poll said Trump’s response to the violence was “not strong enough.”

In a CBS News poll, 55 percent of those surveyed said Trump’s blaming of “both sides” for the violence is inaccurate, compared with 35 percent who said his characterization was accurate.

“By nearly two to one Americans think that President Trump dropped the ball in his handling of this crisis,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College poll, said in a news release. “Not surprisingly, African-Americans and Latinos do not feel the president has their back, but, of note, many white Americans are not in the president’s corner either.”

According to Marist, 77 percent of African-Americans and 55 percent of Latinos believe Trump’s response has been inadequate. That view is shared by 46 percent of white Americans. About 31 percent of white residents think Trump, a Republican, has demonstrated sufficient leadership.

The Marist survey of 1,125 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. Participants were interviewed by phone on Aug. 14-15.

CBS News found a predictable partisan divide. Among Republicans, 68 percent said Trump was accurate in blaming white supremacists and counterprotesters; just 10 percent of Democrats agreed.

The CBS survey of 1,223 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The poll was conducted by telephone Aug. 14-16.