Poll: Americans pessimistic about Trump, country

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump frequently casts his first year in office as a string of successes and campaign promises fulfilled.

But less than a quarter of Americans think Trump has made good on the pledges he made to voters while running for president, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Among Republicans, just half say Trump has kept his promises, which included vows to overhaul his predecessor's health-care law, withdraw the United States from a nuclear accord with Iran and invest millions in new projects to fix the nation's aging infrastructure. None of those steps has been taken.

"Everything has stalled out," said Mark Krowski, 37, an independent from Milwaukee, who leans Republican but didn't vote for Trump last year.

As 2017 comes to a close, the majority of Americans painted a pessimistic view of Trump's presidency, the nation's politics and the overall direction of the country. Just three in 10 Americans said the United States is heading in the right direction, and 52 percent said the country is worse since Trump became president -- worrisome signs for the White House and Republicans heading into a midterm election year where control of Congress will be at stake.

Along with the 23 percent who think Trump has kept his promises, another 30 percent think he has tried and failed, and 45 percent think he hasn't kept them at all.

In a second AP-NORC poll conducted this month, Trump's job approval rating sits at 32 percent, making him the least-popular first-year president on record. A quarter of Republicans say they're among those who disapprove of the president.

One relative bright spot for Trump? The improving economy.

With a soaring stock market and unemployment hovering around 4 percent, 40 percent of Americans approved of Trump's handling of the economy. That's higher than the three in 10 Americans that approved of the president's handling of health care, foreign policy or taxes.

Still, Trump continues to talk about his presidency with rhetorical flourishes, declaring his first months in office outshine those of his predecessors. But 2017 has been devoid of any significant legislative accomplishments, though Republicans are trying to pass a sweeping overhaul of the nation's tax system. The package would give tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and more modest tax cuts to low- and middle-income families.

Republicans are banking on the tax bill being enough to carry them through next year's House and Senate contests, elections that largely will be a referendum on Trump's first two years in office and the GOP's stewardship as the majority party on Capitol Hill. But with the legislation rushed through Congress and negotiated largely in private, Trump and lawmakers may have more work to do to sell the public on its benefits.

"There's so much back and forth and so many adjustments being made. It's just so uncertain," Edward Hale, a 72-year-old independent, said of the tax bill.

One thing Hale, a retired federal government employee from Clarion, Pennsylvania, is certain of in the proposal? "It definitely favors Mr. Trump and his wealthy friends," he said.

The survey results suggest that with or without a tax overhaul, Trump has work to do in convincing the public that his presidency is benefiting them. Just 25 percent of Americans think the country is better off since Trump took office -- and only 20 percent say they personally are doing better.

By contrast, an AP-NORC poll conducted a year ago found that Americans were more likely to think the country had become better off over the course of Barack Obama's presidency than worse off, 46 percent to 33 percent.

Only 9 percent think the country has become more united as a result of Trump's presidency, while 67 percent think the country is more divided because of Trump. That's far higher than the 44 percent of Americans who said in a poll one year ago that Obama's presidency had served to divide the country further.

Even Republicans are more likely to say Trump has divided America than united it, 41 percent to 17 percent.

Notably, the deep-seated pessimism about the president and national politics doesn't extend to local communities. Overall, about half of Americans said they feel optimistic about their local communities. And that feeling is shared across the political spectrum: 55 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans feel optimistic about the way things are going locally.

The AP-NORC polls surveyed 1,444 adults from Nov. 30-Dec. 4 and 1,020 adults from Dec. 7-11 using samples drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points for the first survey and plus or minus 4.3 percentage points for the second.

Interviews were conducted online and using landlines and cellphones.