Administration

Number of Americans who disapprove of Trump’s race relations rises since February

getty: President Trump

The number of Americans who disapprove of President Trump’s handling of race relations ticked up since February, according to a new survey from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project that was published by USA Today.

Fifty-six percent of Americans in the survey said they disapprove of the way the president has handled race relations, a 6-point increase from the same survey in February.

The results are split along racial lines, with 72 percent of Black Americans and 68 percent of Hispanics and Asian Pacific Islanders disapproving. Meanwhile, 48 percent of white Americans disapprove of Trump’s approach to race issues.

The survey was conducted before Tuesday’s debate when Trump declined to explicitly disavow the white supremacist group the Proud Boys but after a national reckoning on systemic racism and police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd in May after a white police officer knelt on his neck. 

Protests across the country have been further fueled by more high-profile police killings of Black Americans, including Breonna Taylor in Kentucky.

Trump has seized on the protests to cast himself as a “law and order” candidate, condemning groups like Black Lives Matter while aligning himself closely with law enforcement.

The president raised eyebrows earlier this week at the debate when he refused to disavow the Proud Boys, which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Proud Boys – stand back and stand by,” Trump said. “But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left.”

Trump tried to clear up the remarks 48 hours later, saying on Fox News, “I condemn the [Ku Klux Klan]. I condemn all white supremacists. I condemn the Proud Boys. I don’t know much about the Proud Boys, almost nothing. But I condemn that.”

The Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project survey polled 6,252 Americans from Sept. 17-23 and has a margin of error of 2.1 percentage points.

Tags 2020 election antifa Black Lives Matter Donald Trump Proud Boys Racism

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