POLL: As in 2018, health care ranks among Trump’s 2020 challenges

Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour(NEW YORK) — The key issue of the 2018 midterms may stick around to trouble President Donald Trump in 2020: Americans, by a 17-point margin, say his handling of health care makes them more likely to oppose than support him for a second term.

That result, from the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, marks one of many challenges Trump is expected to face as he seeks re-election.

The Mueller report and his immigration policies are substantial negatives as well. As reported Friday, Trump’s overall popularity is low: just 39 percent of people approve of his work in office, and 55 percent flatly rule out voting for him next year.

See a PDF with the full results, charts and tables from the poll.

Beyond that, a remarkable 75 percent of Americans, and 85 percent of registered voters, say they’re certain to vote in the 2020 election — intended turnout levels typically only seen in the closing days of a presidential contest. If that intensity is maintained, it may boost Democratic candidates, many of whose core support groups are less reliable voters.

But even as Trump faces bigger-than-typical risks for a president seeking re-election, 2020 may not be as much of a slam-dunk for the Democrats as some of his ratings would suggest. One example: Among those who rule Trump out, just 29 percent say they’ll definitely support his eventual Democratic opponent. Two-thirds say they’re waiting to see who that is.

While more than half of people say they definitely won’t support Trump, 42 percent of Americans overall, and 45 percent of registered voters, say they’d at least consider him for a second term. Trump won 46.1 percent of the popular vote compared to Hillary Clinton’s 48.2 percent in 2016, demonstrating that losing the popular vote is irrelevant if you win the Electoral College.

Willingness to consider Trump for a second term varies markedly among groups in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. In the Midwest — the region he mostly won in 2016 — 54 percent say they’d definitely or possibly support him for re-election. So do 54 percent of white people nationally, and 58 percent in rural areas where his support is strongest.

Trump’s weaknesses are apparent in these results as well: In his own party, 15 percent of Republicans say they definitely will not support Trump for-election, as do 30 percent of people who identify as conservative.

Among other groups, this soars to 61 percent of 18- to 39-year-olds, 62 percent of women, 64 percent of those with a postgraduate degree, 68 percent of urban residents, 81 percent of Hispanics and 86 percent of blacks.

Copyright © 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

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