ST. PAUL -- A new MPR News/Star Tribune Minnesota Poll shows President Trump’s approval rating at 44 percent in the state, while 52 percent disapprove of the job he’s doing.
Even so, only 42 percent said they supported congressional Democrats’ efforts to impeach Trump and remove him from office. Fifty percent said they opposed the efforts.
The president's approval rating in Minnesota has changed little over the course of five statewide polls conducted since he took office in 2017, moving slightly between 39 percent and 45 percent.
For this latest survey, pollsters with the Mason-Dixon firm contacted 800 registered voters across Minnesota by cellphone and landline over the course of three days early last week. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 points.
Not surprisingly, Trump has the least support — 24 percent — in the DFL strongholds of Hennepin and Ramsey counties.
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“Generally I think the tone and demeanor of his style and language and approach is divisive and not constructive,” said Marcus Greyson-Grubbs, 31, of Minneapolis, who works in the environmental sustainability field.
Trump’s approval rating was higher with voters in southern and northern Minnesota and in the metro suburbs, according to the poll.
On Trump’s handling of jobs and the economy, the poll found 50 percent approve of Trump’s performance compared to 43 percent who do not.
Irene Lee, 86, lived in the Twin Cities before moving to the northern Minnesota community of Staples. Lee said she’s looking forward to voting for anyone but Trump in November.
“He’s never done anything personally to me, but I just don’t like him. I don’t like his attitude, I don’t like the way he talks,” Lee said. “He thinks he can say anything because he’s president and he can do anything because he’s president.”
Lee said she’s particularly concerned about Trump’s apparent lack of interest in stopping Russian interference in American politics and elections.
But she said she doesn’t talk politics much with her neighbors. Seventy-one percent of voters in Todd County, where Lee lives, cast ballots for Trump in 2016, and his support remains strong across that part of the state.
Beltrami County went hard for Trump in 2016. And few were as outspoken in their support as Bill Batchelder — the owner operator of Bemidji Woolen Mills.
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In the months before the last presidential election, he put up a Trump campaign sign the size of a semi truck, the biggest in northern Minnesota.
This election season, he’s still with the 44 percent in the poll who approve of Trump, with some reservations.
“Everyone, whether they’ve got the Trump hat and the Trump T-shirt and the Trump flag and the Trump bumper sticker, they all say, ‘I wish he would quit tweeting. I wish he wouldn’t say the things he does,’” Batchelder said.
When Trump talks about renegotiating NAFTA and bringing back manufacturing jobs it gives Batchelder hope. And he said people seem to have more money in their pockets.
“I notice it with the blue-collar laborers. They come in and say, ‘I’m going to buy two pair of boots,’ and they don’t quibble over the price.”
On another issue, the poll found 52 percent believe Trump’s handling of national security and foreign policy has made the country less safe while 30 percent say the opposite.
MPR News data reporter David H. Montgomery contributed to this story.
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