Religious freedom in America: popular and polarizing

On August 20, 2020August 20, 2020 by Daniel Malato

By Elana Schor and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

August 5, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — The principle of religious freedom is important to most Americans. But as President Donald Trump touts his support for it during his reelection bid, there are notable fault lines among people of different faiths and political ideologies over what it truly means.

About 8 in 10 Americans said religious freedom issues are at least somewhat important to them, with 55% saying they are very important, according to a newly released poll conducted by The University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

While 35% of U.S. adults overall said they believe their own religious freedom is threatened at least somewhat, conservatives were more likely than liberals to say so. Across the largest U.S. religious denominations, evangelical Protestants were especially likely to perceive risks to their freedom to worship.

A divide over religious freedom for Muslims was particularly apparent in the poll. About half of Americans said U.S. Muslims’ freedom to worship is threatened at least somewhat, including 7 in 10 atheists and agnostics, about 6 in 10 Catholics, and about half of white mainline and nonwhite Protestants. Only about 3 in 10 white evangelicals, however, said Muslim Americans’ religious freedom is at least somewhat threatened.

The poll’s findings suggest that, as Trump leans into religious freedom as a touchstone of his outreach to devout voters, conservatives and evangelicals who make up the core of his base hold distinctly different perspectives on the topic than other Americans. Whether those divergent views can be joined and harnessed to make progress on the issue for a wide variety of faiths remains an open question.

“No one’s religious freedom is an island, and if the government is empowered to take religious freedom away from Muslims or other religious minorities, the government is going to be empowered to take away religious freedom from other religious groups,” said Luke Goodrich, senior counsel at the nonpartisan Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

Becket has racked up legal victories for Christian clients, including last month’s Supreme Court ruling that upheld the ability of religious schools and other institutions to make certain employment decisions without facing discrimination claims.

But the nonprofit firm represents members of all faiths, and Goodrich said “it’s vitally important, for the health of religious freedom over the long term, that Americans care for religious freedom for those with whom they deeply disagree.”

In the poll, 77% of liberals said Muslims’ freedoms were threatened at least somewhat, compared with 32% of conservatives. Liberals also were roughly three times more likely than conservatives to perceive threats to atheists and Buddhists, and somewhat more likely to perceive threats to Jews, 56% to 41%.

By contrast, by roughly two to one, more conservatives than liberals said evangelical Protestants, Catholics and other Christians face threats to their religious freedom.

Andrew Lewis, an associate political science professor at the University of Cincinnati who focuses on religion, said a “polarization of religious freedom” has developed over the last two decades, with potentially negative consequences.

“Religious freedom has always been a contested question in America,” Lewis said, “but the fact that it’s entered into our politically partisan landscape is bad for thinking about how we protect the rights of people.”

The poll was conducted in February, before the coronavirus wreaked havoc in the country, but has not been made public until now. And some of its findings have resonated more sharply since the pandemic began.

For example, 46% of evangelicals said their religious freedom was under threat, compared with 27% of mainline Protestants, 36% of Catholics and 40% of Americans affiliated with other religions.

Another UChicago Divinity School/AP-NORC poll conducted in the early weeks of the pandemic found white evangelicals were particularly likely to say in-person worship should be allowed in some form, and 46% said that barring those services would violate religious freedom.

David Nirenberg, dean of The University of Chicago Divinity School, pointed to “communications bubbles in certain faith communities” that often reinforce to believers the assertion that their religious liberty is imperiled.

“We’re seeing some of that now mobilized again in the public health response” to the virus, Nirenberg added, including restrictions on in-person worship and other behavior that are “represented in some of those same communities as an attack on their religious liberties.”

Trump’s reelection campaign has appealed to evangelicals in part by seeking to portray Democrats as opponents of religious freedom, with surrogates often citing state and local restrictions on in-person worship during the pandemic.

Religious freedom lawyer Asma Uddin connected the poll’s finding that evangelicals are less likely than other groups to believe Muslims’ freedom to worship is threatened to their broader perspective on religious freedom.

Evangelicals can view religious freedom “essentially as a shield to protect the ‘in’ group,” added Uddin, a fellow at the Aspen Institute think tank. As a result, it “becomes something you can’t defend for the ‘out’ group.”

However, the poll’s findings of a gulf in perceptions about religious freedom wasn’t limited to evangelicals. About half of atheists and agnostics said evangelical Protestants’ claims to religious freedom threaten others’ rights at least somewhat, and about 4 in 10 said the same about other Christians.

By comparison, 16% of Protestants perceived evangelicals and other Christians as threatening the rights of others with their claims.

Roughly comparable shares across religious affiliations — about 4 in 10 — said Jews’ freedom of religion is being threatened at least somewhat. Similarly, roughly comparable shares across religious affiliations — all under 2 in 10 — said Jews’ claims were threatening to others’ rights.

Religious groups that make up a small share of the U.S. population could not be analyzed separately in the poll because of sample size.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,015 adults was conducted Feb. 13-16 using a sample 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 4.2 percentage points.

Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/.

Schor reported from New York.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Poll: US believers see message of change from God in virus

On August 20, 2020August 20, 2020 by Daniel Malato

By Elana Schor and Hannah Fingerhut| The Associated Press

May 15, 2020

NEW YORK (AP) — The coronavirus has prompted almost two-thirds of American believers of all faiths to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives, a new poll finds.

While the virus rattles the globe, causing economic hardship for millions and killing more than 80,000 Americans, the findings of the poll by the University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicate that people may also be searching for deeper meaning in the devastating outbreak.

Even some who don’t affiliate with organized religion, such as Lance Dejesus of Dallastown, Pa., saw a possible bigger message in the virus.

“It could be a sign, like ‘hey, get your act together’ – I don’t know,” said Dejesus, 52, who said he believes in God but doesn’t consider himself religious. “It just seems like everything was going in an OK direction and all of a sudden you get this coronavirus thing that happens, pops out of nowhere.”

The poll found that 31% of Americans who believe in God feel strongly that the virus is a sign of God telling humanity to change, with the same number feeling that somewhat. Evangelical Protestants are more likely than others to believe that strongly, at 43%, compared with 28% of Catholics and mainline Protestants.

The question was asked of all Americans who said they believe in God, without specifying a specific faith. The survey did not have a sample size large enough to report on the opinions of religious faiths with smaller numbers of U.S. adherents, including Muslims and Jews.

In addition, black Americans were more likely than those of other racial backgrounds to say they feel the virus is a sign God wants humanity to change, regardless of education, income or gender. Forty-seven percent say they feel that strongly, compared with 37% of Latino and 27% of white Americans.

The COVID-19 virus has disproportionately walloped black Americans, exposing societal inequality that has left minorities more vulnerable and heightening concern that the risks they face are getting ignored by a push to reopen the U.S. economy. Amid that stark reality, the poll found black Americans who believe in God are more likely than others to say they have felt doubt about God’s existence as a result of the virus — 27% said that, compared with 13% of Latinos and 11% of white Americans.

But the virus has prompted negligible change in Americans’ overall belief in God, with 2% saying they believe in God today, but did not before. Fewer than 1% say they do not believe in God today but did before.

Most houses of worship stopped in-person services to help protect public health as the virus began spreading, but that didn’t stop religious Americans from turning to online and drive-in gatherings to express their faiths. Americans with a religious affiliation are regularly engaging in private prayer during the pandemic, with 57% saying they do so at least weekly since March — about the same share that say they prayed as regularly last year.

Overall, 82% of Americans say they believe in God, and 26% of Americans say their sense of faith or spirituality has grown stronger as a result of the outbreak. Just 1% say it has weakened.

Kathryn Lofton, a professor of religious studies at Yale University, interpreted the high number of Americans perceiving the virus as a message from God about change as an expression of “fear that if we don’t change, this misery will continue.”

“When people get asked about God, they often interpret it immediately as power,” said Lofton, who collaborated with researchers from the University of Chicago and other universities, along with The Associated Press, on the design of the new poll. “And they answer the question saying, ‘Here’s where the power is to change the thing I experience.’”

Fifty-five percent of American believers say they feel at least somewhat that God will protect them from being infected. Evangelical Protestants are more likely than those of other religious backgrounds to say they believe that, with 43% saying so strongly and another 30% saying so somewhat, while Catholics and mainline Protestants are more closely split on feeling that way or not.

However, the degree and nature of protection that God is believed to offer during the pandemic can differ depending on the believer. Marcia Howl, 73, a Methodist and granddaughter of a minister, said she feels God’s protection but not certainty that it would save her from the virus.

“I believe he has protected me in the past, that he has a plan for us,” said Howl, of Portalas, N.M. “I don’t know what’s in his plan, but I believe his presence is here looking after me. Whether I can survive it or not, that’s a different story.”

Among black Americans who believe in God, 49% say they feel strongly that God will protect them from the virus, compared with 34% of Latino and 20% of white Americans.

David Emmanuel Goatley, a professor at Duke University’s divinity school who was not involved with the survey, said religious black Americans’ view of godly protection could convey “confidence or hope that God is able to provide — that does not relinquish personal responsibility, but it says God is able.”

Goatley, who directs the school’s Office of Black Church Studies, noted a potential distinction between how religious black Americans and religious white Americans might see their protective relationship with God.

Within black Christian theology is a sense of connection to the divine in which “God is personally engaged and God is present,” he said. That belief, he added, is “different from a number of white Christians, evangelical and not, who would have a theology that’s more a private relationship with God.”

Fingerhut reported from Washington.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,002 adults was conducted April 30-May 4 using a sample 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 4.2 percentage points.

Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Poll shows a partisan split over virus-era religious freedom

On August 20, 2020August 20, 2020 by Daniel Malato

By Elana Schor and Emily Swanson | The Associated Press

May 13, 2020

NEW YORK (AP) — As the nation’s houses of worship weigh how and when to resume in-person gatherings while coronavirus stay-at-home orders ease in some areas, a new poll points to a partisan divide over whether restricting those services violates religious freedom.

Questions about whether states and localities could restrict religious gatherings to protect public health during the pandemic while permitting other secular activities have swirled for weeks and resulted in more than a dozen legal challenges that touch on freedom to worship.

President Donald Trump’s administration has sided with two churches contesting their areas’ pandemic-related limits on in-person and drive-in services — a stance that appeals to his conservative base, according to the new poll by The University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The poll found Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say prohibiting in-person services during the coronavirus outbreak violates religious freedom, 49% to 21%.

A majority of Democrats, 58%, say they think in-person religious services should not be allowed at all during the pandemic, compared with 34% of Republicans who say the same. Among Republicans, most of the remainder — 48% — think they should be allowed with restrictions, while 15% think they should be allowed without restrictions. Just 5% of Democrats favor unrestricted in-person worship, and 38% think it should be permitted with restrictions.

Caught between the poles of the debate are Americans like Stanley Maslowski, 83, a retired Catholic priest in St. Paul, Minn., and an independent who voted for Trump in 2016 but is undecided this year. Maslowski was of two minds about a court challenge by Kentucky churches that successfully exempted in-person religious services from the temporary gathering ban issued by that state’s Democratic governor.

“On the one hand, I think it restricts religious freedom,” Maslowski said of the Kentucky ban. “On the other hand, I’m not sure if some of that restriction is warranted because of the severity of the contagious virus. It’s a whole new situation.”

The unprecedented circumstance of a highly contagious virus whose spread was traced back, in some regions, to religious gatherings prompted most leaders across faiths to suspend in-person worship during the early weeks of the pandemic. But it wasn’t long before worship restrictions prompted legal skirmishes from Kansas to California, with several high-profile cases championed by conservative legal nonprofits that have allied with the Trump administration’s past elevation of religious liberty.

One of those conservative nonprofits, the First Liberty Institute, spearheaded a Tuesday letter asking federal lawmakers to extend liability protections from coronavirus-related negligence lawsuits to religious organizations in their next coronavirus relief legislation.

Shielding houses of worship from potential legal liability would “reassure ministries that voluntarily closed that they can reopen in order to resume serving their communities,” the First Liberty-led letter states.

Among the hundreds of faith leaders signing the letter were several conservative evangelical Christian supporters of Trump, including Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, and Rabbi Pesach Lerner, the president of the Coalition for Jewish Values.

John Inazu, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who studies the First Amendment, said the letter’s warning of legal peril for religious organizations that reopen their doors amid the virus appeared inflated. But he predicted further legal back-and-forth over whether eased-up gathering limits treat religious gatherings neutrally.

“I would think the greater litigation risk is not from private citizens suing churches but from churches suing municipalities whose reopening policies potentially disadvantage churches relative to businesses and other social institutions,” Inazu said by email. “Some of those suits will have merit, and some won’t.”

Drive-through or drive-in services have grown in popularity during the virus as ways for houses of worship to continue welcoming the faithful while attempting to keep them at a reasonable social distance. Local limits on those services prompted high-profile legal challenges, including one of the two where the Justice Department weighed in on behalf of churches. The new poll also points to a partisan split on that issue.

Fifty-nine percent of Republicans say prohibitions on drive-in services while the outbreak is ongoing are a violation of religious freedom, compared with 30% of Democrats. Republicans are also more likely than Democrats to say that drive-through religious services should be allowed without restriction, 38% to 18%.

Most Republicans and Democrats think drive-in services should be restricted, with few thinking they shouldn’t be allowed at all.

Daniel Bennett, an associate political science professor at John Brown University, pointed to high support for Trump among white evangelicals — whom the poll showed are also more likely than others to say in-person worship should be allowed during the virus — as a possible driver of Democratic sentiment in the opposite direction.

Religious freedom can grow “more partisan when you have these white evangelicals who are such a key part of the Trump administration’s voting bloc,” said Bennett, who wrote a book on conservative Christian legal organizations. “It’s a gut reaction to say, ‘oh, you’re for this — I have to be against this’.”

Bennett pointed to a bigger question that predated, and promises to outlast, the virus: “How do we communicate these issues in terms of religious freedom while not alienating people for partisan reasons?”

Swanson reported from Washington.

Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Poll: Most in US back curbing in-person worship amid virus

On August 20, 2020August 20, 2020 by Daniel Malato

By Elana Schor and Emily Swanson | The Associated Press

May 8, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — While the White House looks ahead to reopening houses of worship, most Americans think in-person religious services should be barred or allowed only with limits during the coronavirus pandemic — and only about a third say that prohibiting in-person services violates religious freedom, a new poll finds.

States have taken different approaches to resuming gatherings as the coronavirus continues to spread, raising tough questions for religious leaders and the faithful about the appropriate time to return. But the findings of the new poll by The University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggest that, even as President Donald Trump projects eagerness to reopen, many religious Americans are fine with waiting longer to return to their churches, synagogues and mosques.

Among that group is 54-year-old Andre Harris of Chicago, a onetime Sunday school teacher who has shifted his routine from physical worship to the conference calls his church is holding during the pandemic.

Harris, a Methodist, said that until “either there’s a vaccine, or if we know that things have calmed down, I am not comfortable going back to the actual building.”

Just 9% of Americans think in-person religious services should be permitted without restrictions, while 42% think they should be allowed with restrictions, and 48% think they should not be allowed at all, the poll shows. Even among Americans who identify with a religion, 45% say in-person services shouldn’t be allowed at all.

White evangelical Protestants, however, are particularly likely to think that in-person services should be allowed in some form, with just 35% saying they should be completely prohibited. Close to half – 46% — also say they think prohibiting those services violates religious freedom.

That constituency’s support for some form of in-person worship underscores the political importance of Trump’s public calls to restore religious gatherings as a symbol of national recovery from the virus, as energizing evangelical voters remains a key element of the president’s reelection strategy. Trump won praise from some evangelical leaders for citing the aspirational ideal of “packed churches” on Easter during the first weeks of the pandemic, though his goal didn’t materialize on Christianity’s holiest day.

Trump has since consulted with religious leaders on a phased-in return to in-person worship.

“It’s wonderful to watch people over a laptop, but it’s not like being at a church,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall on Sunday. “And we have to get our people back to churches, and we’re going to start doing it soon.”

Vice President Mike Pence met with faith leaders Friday in Iowa to talk about their reopening of worship, describing the constraints on worship assemblies as “a source of heartache” for the faithful.

Iowa is one of several states, including Tennessee and Montana, where restrictions on in-person services are starting to ease as stay-home orders imposed to stop the virus run their course.

That’s in line with the preference of Patrick Gideons, 63, of Alvin, Texas, who said worshippers “should be able to do what they want.”

“If they want to be able to hold church the way they normally do, they should be able to do that,” said Gideons, a self-described born-again Baptist.

As houses of worship wrestle with when to reopen, draft guidance by a team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that offered recommendations for faith gatherings has been shelved by the Trump administration. While those guidelines aimed to help religious organizations use best practices to protect people from the virus, leaders in various denominations have already initiated their own discussions.

“Churches are very aware of the implications of people gathering in their buildings,” Kenneth Carter, president of the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops, said in a recent interview about the draft CDC guidance.

Compared with in-person religious services, Americans are more likely to favor allowing drive-through services, although most still say there should be limits. Overall, 25% think that those services should be allowed without any limits, and 62% say they should be allowed with limits.

The Justice Department last month sided with a Mississippi church in its legal challenge to local limits on drive-in worship. Still, the poll found 56% of Americans say prohibiting drive-in services does not violate religious freedom.

White evangelical Protestants were more likely than those of other faiths to favor allowing drive-through services without restriction, at 40%. In total, those who identify with a religious faith are more likely than those who do not to favor no restriction on drive-through religious services, 28% to 15%.

As many houses of worship have paused in-person services, a sizable share of religious Americans have used technology to connect with their faith. One-fifth of religious Americans said they watched livestreamed religious services online at least weekly in 2019 — but since the outbreak began, that has risen to 33%.

About a third of evangelical Protestants streamed services at least weekly in 2019, but about half do now. Among Catholics, the share streaming services weekly has increased from 11% to 22%.

For members of the Southern Baptist Convention, when and how to resume in-person worship “would be a congregation-by-congregation decision,” Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said in a recent interview about the draft CDC guidance.

Moore predicted that some virtual worship would continue even as areas resume in-person gatherings. Part of his work in offering resources to inform decisions, Moore said, involves “preparing churches for the fact that reopening probably won’t be one Sunday when everything goes back to the status quo.”

“Instead, there’s going to be probably a lengthy period of time where multiple things are happening at once,” Moore said.

Schor reported from New York. Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.

Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/

Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

AP-NORC poll: Anxiety props up Biden, Trump voters fervent

On July 27, 2020December 1, 2020 by Daniel Malato

By Steve Peoples and Hannah Fingerhut | The Associated Press

July 27, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Murtice Sherek is not excited about Joe Biden.

The Minnesota Democrat, a 79-year-old retired nurse, preferred another candidate in the presidential primary. She also worries about Biden’s age, 77. But anxious about another four years of President Donald Trump, she says she’s willing to go to any length to ensure Biden wins this fall.

“I don’t really give a damn what I have to do. If I have to carry signs on the streets, if I have to carry my old friends to the polls, I’ll do it,” Sherek said. “This just can’t be. Trump is a sick man.”

Roughly three months before Election Day, a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that Biden’s supporters are less enthusiastic than Trump’s — both about the campaign itself and about their candidate — although the Democrat’s coalition may be equally motivated by anxiety.

Still, the poll reveals an American public at odds with Trump on wearing masks, on balancing restrictions to stop the virus with efforts to help the economy and on fully reopening schools. And voters give Biden higher marks on many positive traits that apply to leadership in the age of the coronavirus, including honesty, capability and caring for Americans.

Sherek’s assessment of the candidates highlights the nuanced motivations underlying the so-called enthusiasm gap, which has raised concerns among Biden’s allies who worry the deficit could undermine his candidacy once voting begins.

While interest in the presidential campaign is high across the board, just 31% of Biden supporters say they’re excited, compared with 42% of Trump supporters. Biden’s coalition is fueled by more negative emotions: 72% of Biden supporters, but 52% of Trump supporters, say they feel anxious about the 2020 campaign. The same disparity exists for frustration with the election, 65% for Biden supporters and 45% for Trump’s.

Anya Kumar, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate from Columbia, Missouri, vowed to vote for Biden this fall but conceded many of her young friends who oppose Trump don’t feel much passion for the former vice president. Many aren’t even registered, she said.

“For the most part, people I know really just don’t want Trump,” Kumar said, acknowledging that she is motivated more by anxiety about Trump’s reelection than genuine excitement about his Democratic rival. “If Biden doesn’t win, that would suck.”

Biden’s team largely dismisses the idea of an enthusiasm gap. It says that with Trump’s level of support shrinking, a greater share of energized supporters is left behind in the diminished pool. Indeed, Trump’s job approval in the new poll sits at 38%, within the narrow range that has endured throughout his presidency but down from relative highs earlier this year.

Just 32% of voters approve of the way Trump is handling the pandemic, a low point that follows a steady decline from the outset of the crisis. While Trump’s supporters almost unanimously approve of his performance overall, 2 in 10 disapprove of his response to the pandemic.

Stacey Rogus, 43, a Republican from Glendale, Arizona, who works in the medical industry, admitted some concerns about Trump. She says the president is narcissistic, doesn’t act as “presidential” as she’d like and doesn’t think before he speaks. But Rogus is determined to vote for him a second time because of his economic policies and support for the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

She also suspects that Trump’s political opponents are exaggerating the threat of the coronavirus pandemic to hurt his reelection. She finds the timing of the outbreak “a little odd.”

“He didn’t make the virus,” Rogus said. “If anything, maybe the Democrat party created it just to make him look bad.” (The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has ruled out the virus being human-made and noted that is the scientific consensus as well.)

The poll also found that voters generally prefer Biden’s character and values. About 6 in 10 registered voters say that values like “cares about people like you,” “honest” and “strong leader” do not describe Trump well. By comparison, roughly the same majority say those characteristics describe Biden at least somewhat well.

And in considering whether the two are “capable” — a question that likely reflects voters’ views of each man’s mental acuity and ability to govern — fewer say that describes Trump than Biden at least somewhat well, 43% vs. 56%. Trump, who’s 74, and his allies have made attacks against Biden’s age and cognitive ability a centerpiece of their message.

Trump has an advantage on standing up for what he believes. Seventy percent think this describes Trump at least somewhat well, including 54% who think it describes him very well. Sixty-three percent think standing up for his beliefs describes Biden at least somewhat well, but just 36% think it describes him very well.

Trump’s supporters are much stronger in their positive descriptions of Trump than Biden backers are of their candidate. For example, wide majorities of Trump supporters think “stands up for what he believes” (87%), “strong leader” (75%) and “capable” (76%) describe the president very well. Fewer Biden supporters think “standing up for what he believes” (63%), “strong leader” (50%) and “capable” (56%) describe Biden very well.

For Biden, a significant age gap within his coalition drives the lukewarm ratings. Older Biden supporters are much more likely than those under 45 to say such traits describe Biden very well.

Terrance Berinato, a 72-year-old Democrat from Front Royal, Virginia, who said he’ll definitely vote for Biden and describes Trump as “the worst president we’ve ever had, period.” He acknowledged that Trump supporters may be more excited about their candidate, but he predicted it wouldn’t matter given that Trump’s overall support is shrinking.

“I’m sure Trump supporters, the 30% or 40% of people who would follow him to hell, are very enthused,” Berinato said.

Peoples reported from New York.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,057 adults was conducted July 16-20 using a sample 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 4.3 percentage points.

Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/