Trump’s Voters Largely Satisfied With His First 100 Days

(CN) - As his first 100 days in the White House come to close on Saturday, President Donald Trump can point to one accomplishment that would make many of his successors green with envy: the voters who elevated him to office are largely satisfied with his performance and are optimistic about the future.

The latest USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll, conducted April 12-26, did find a great deal of ambivalence about the president -- only 40 percent of "all voters" approve of what he's done since elected, compared to 46 percent who disapprove and the 14 percent who declined to choose -- but when it came to Trump's core supporters, 87 percent said they are happy with the job he's doing and 92 percent said they would vote for him again.

But supporters of Democrat Hillary Clinton are also standing firm by their candidate, with 89 percent saying they would vote for her again.

Those findings suggest that five months removed from the contentious 2016 general election, the country is as divided as it was then, and little to no healing has taken place.

In fact, the researchers conducting the survey found that only 2 percent of Trump and Clinton voters said they would switch sides and vote for the other candidate if they had to do it all over again today.

The survey also found that if the vote were held this week, rather than Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, Clinton would pick up 16 percent of Independent Gary Johnson’s voters and 28 percent of Green Party Jill Stein’s voters; Trump, by comparison, would draw 7 percent from Johnson and 14 percent from Stein.

“Trump was politically fortunate that some of his initiatives fell short, such as the Trump-Ryan health care proposal that would have hurt many who had voted for him,” said Robert Shrum, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and a political science professor at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, in an analysis of the poll published on the university's website. “Despite these shortcomings, his base is solid, but so is his Democratic opposition.”

So how does the electorate view the future?

If you're a Trump voter, the survey found, you're decidedly optimistic.

Eighty-seven percent said that the country is on the right track while a nearly equal percentage of Clinton voters said it is on the wrong track. Seventy-three percent of third-party voters said the country is on the wrong track.

Almost 8 of 10 Trump voters (79 percent) were hopeful for job growth in the coming year, and just over half predicted improvement for the country on the issues of terrorism threats and health care reform.

Clinton voters were much more pessimistic.

Between two-thirds and three-quarters predicted things would worsen in all but one category — jobs and employment, where a plurality thought they would remain about the same.

Roughly 9 of 10 Trump voters said they feel that Trump keeps his promises, “speaks for people like me,” inspires confidence, is bringing needed change to Washington and represents American values.

Eighty percent said Trump is ethical and trustworthy and 85 percent believed that he bases policy on facts and good data. Between 83 percent and 95 percent of Clinton voters disagreed that those attributes describe Trump.

The survey also looked at that most touchy-feely of data sets, the president's likability.

Fifty-three percent of Trump voters said they like and approve of his policies, 17 percent said they dislike him but approve of his policies, and a similar proportion (19 percent) said that they like him but are unsure of his policies.

Nine percent said they just plain dislike him and offered no opinion on his policies.

Of Clinton voters, 69 percent said they dislike him and his policies, and 20 percent dislike him but didn’t rate his polices.

He was liked by 3 percent of Clinton voters who were unsure of his policies and by 6 percent of Clinton voters who disapproved of them.

Another interesting, but entirely predictably finding of the survey was that when it comes to the news, Trump voters trust only two sources: the administration itself (60 percent) and Fox News (50 percent).

Their trust for all other news outlets, including talk radio, was around or below 25 percent.

Clinton voters, meanwhile, put a lot more stock in national newspapers like The New York Times, and public television (both were trusts by 60 percent of respondents); coming in second were NPR and CNN (trusted by about 58 percent of respondents); and third were MSNBC and regional newspapers, which were trusted by about 50 percent of Clinton voters.

And there was little crossover. We simply don't trust each other's sources of information. Those who trusted sources such as CNN or national newspapers, for instance, tended not to trust Fox News.

When it comes to finances, Trump voters participating in the survey were more optimistic than they were before the election.

At that time, 29 percent of them predicted that they would be better off next year, compared to 48 percent who feel optimistic about their financial future now.

Thirty-two percent of Clinton voters in the latest survey said they believe that their finances are improving, up 2 points from a year ago.

Seventeen percent this year believe their finances are worsening, down 2 points from last year.

The USC Dornsife/L.A. Times poll is a partnership between the Los Angeles Times, as well as the Unruh Institute of Politics and the Center for Economic and Social Research, both at USC Dornsife.

The latest poll surveyed 3039 adult Americans, of whom 2,584 reported that they voted in the 2016 election. The margin of error is plus/minus 2 percent.

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