Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Barack Obama: Most Americans want him back as President, poll shows

52% of those polled yearn for Mr Obama, while only 43% are glad Mr Trump is President

Rachael Revesz
New York
Thursday 02 February 2017 20:22 GMT
Comments
Mr Obama promised he would keep fighting for the issues he cared about as a citizen
Mr Obama promised he would keep fighting for the issues he cared about as a citizen (Peter Souza)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Donald Trump has been President for 13 days and yet more than half of Americans are missing former President Barack Obama, according to a new poll.

A total of 52 per cent of Americans are yearning for Mr Obama, found a survey from Public Policy Polling, while just 43 per cent are glad that Mr Trump is in the White House.

Furthermore, 40 per cent want the new President to be impeached, up from 35 per cent one week ago.

More than 500,000 people have also signed up to a petition by campaign group Impeach Trump Now on the basis that he has not taken a far enough step away from his real estate empire whilst in government.

Barack Obama gives first speech as US citizen in eight years

Mr Trump, despite winning the electoral college, lost the popular vote by close to three million votes and is already suffering the lowest popularity ratings in contemporary American history.

The low numbers come down to opposition to his policies.

Only a quarter of Americans (26 per cent) were in favour of the Muslim ban, the executive order which barred nearly all travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries for at least 90 days.

Almost half of Trump supporters were in favour of the order, however, and 48 per cent believed the protesters at airports around the country - as well as people at the women’s marches - were paid by billionaire investor and Hillary Clinton supporter George Soros.

Mr Trump’s view that millions of illegal voters cost him the popular vote is not widely shared (26 per cent agreement) and 54 per cent of voters are opposed to Americans paying to build the wall along the Mexican border. The wall is estimated to cost as much as $14 billion and Mexican President Pena Nieto has vowed he will not reimburse the US.

The President’s signature campaign pledge, to repeal and replace Obamacare, has become increasingly unpopular. Just 41 per cent of voters are against the Affordable Care Act.

His unpopular policies started early. On Inauguration day he demanded to know why the National Park Service had tweeted pictures of relatively small crowd sizes at his swearing in ceremony compared to Mr Obama’s, and then censored the government agency’s social media access. Just 30 per cent of voters approved of that plan.

His chief strategist and Breitbart founder Steve Bannon has very low support of 19 per cent of voters. Just over one third of those polled think it was a good idea for Mr Bannon to become a permanent member of the National Security Council.

The poll surveyed 725 registered voters between 30 and 31 January with 80 per cent of them participating through land line telephones. The margin of error was 3.6 per cent.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in