Fewer Americans now think highly of President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, compared with when they first started serving as senior advisers in the White House, a new poll shows.
In January 2017 when Ivanka Trump entered the White House, 42 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of her, and 33 percent had an unfavorable one. While the percentage of those who view her in a favorable light has remained unchanged in the 14 months since, the percentage of those with an unfavorable impression of the president's eldest daughter has leaped up to 43, according to an Economist/YouGov Poll released Wednesday.
A similar scenario has played out with Ivanka Trump's husband. Considerably less well known than his wife when entering the White House, Kushner had a favorability rating of 25 percent in January 2017, compared with 29 percent who looked at him in a negative light. Since then, not only has the percentage of those viewing him favorably seen a modest drop, to 22 percent, but his unfavorability percentage now stands at a massive 42 percent.
The poll comes after a wave of negative reports and incidents involving both Kushner and his wife. The downgrade of his top-secret security clearance announced last week appears to have dealt a particular blow to his popularity.
According to the poll, only 22 percent of poll participants think Kushner can carry out his duties without the top security clearance that gave him access to classified information, while 40 percent think he can't.
The latest Economist/YouGov Poll finds that 81% of Americans – Republicans and Democrats alike – believing that Trump speaks without thinking most of the time, and at least some of the time, says things that are incorrect https://t.co/8ePuoLgPh6 pic.twitter.com/xWLpREgSgA
— YouGovUS (@YouGovUS) March 7, 2018
Kushner's broad foreign affairs portfolio includes a Middle East peace plan and leading relations with Mexico and China. Doubts that he can be effective in his role exist even among some Republicans—23 percent think he can't do his job, while 36 percent think he still can.
Further damaging Kushner's reputation were reports last week that his family-run real estate company obtained loans from Apollo Global Management and Citigroup after Kushner met with the lenders in his official capacity.
Democrats, by 6-to1, said they thought the loans materialized due to Kushner's role in the White House, while 21 percent of Republicans agreed and 32 percent disagreed, according to the poll. Democrats were more attentive to issues plaguing the Trump administration—31 percent said they had heard "a lot" about the Kushner loan reports while only 11 percent of Republicans had.
Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, faced a barrage of criticism after claiming during an NBC News interview that it was "inappropriate" for her to be asked about sexual misconduct allegations made against her father.
The poll, conducted from March 4 to 6, surveyed 1,500 American adults and had a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
A Los Angeles native, Jessica Kwong grew up speaking Spanish, Cantonese and English, in that order. Her journalism career started ... Read more
