Trump vs. Comey: Ex-FBI Director’s Approval Rating Lower Than Trump’s In New Poll

Former FBI Director James Comey had lower job approval ratings than that of President Donald Trump in the latest Harvard-Harris Poll, the Hill reported Monday. The president fired Comey on May 9 over his handling of the investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

According to the poll whose results were released to the Hill, 60 percent of voters disapproved of Comey’s job at the bureau compared to 40 percent who approved it. Moreover, 70 percent expressed disapproval over the way Comey probed Clinton’s email scandal. His favorability rating was 31 percent positive compared to 39 percent negative, the Hill reported, citing poll results.

“The polling on Comey shows that President Trump is more in trouble for the way he fired Comey rather than for removing him,” Mark Penn, co-director of the Harvard-Harris survey, told the news outlet.

Separately, Trump’s job approval rating touched a new low in the poll, the Hill reported. According to the survey, the president’s job approval rating declined to 45 percent currently from 49 percent in March.

“The poll, taken at the height of the Comey frenzy, shows a weakening hand as would be expected,” Penn said.

However, most of the people who voted for Trump still supported him. “He is holding on to 90 percent of his voters and his ratings are still above approval ratings for both the Democratic and Republican parties,” Penn said.

Furthermore, the president also had a job approval rating of 85 percent among all Republicans. About 54 percent of registered voters and 63 percent of independents maintained their disapproval over Trump’s move of firing Comey.

The poll also found 59 percent of voters believed that Trump indeed asked Comey to put an end to the probe into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s connections with Russia. However, 52 percent of voters said they did not think Russia and Trump’s campaign conspired during the 2016 presidential election, which swayed the poll in favor of the 70-year-old.

Meanwhile, Trump's critics have been calling for his impeachment due to the controversies surrounding him. About 66 percent of Democrats said in the poll they think the president will be ousted. However, most independents and Republicans believed Trump will continue to remain in the office.

“Right now nearly 60 percent believe impeachment will go nowhere, though a majority of Democrats think it will and so either that will happen or there is great potential for a boomerang among non-Democrats and disappointment among the party base,” Penn was quoted in the report.

Apart from this, 73 percent of voters said they wanted Robert Mueller, the newly appointed special counsel, to probe Trump’s allegations that his predecessor Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Towers ahead of the 2016 election. Trump made the allegation against Obama March 4 saying he would prove the former president indeed spied on him before the voting.

The survey was conducted between May 17 and May 20. Nearly 2,006 registered voters participated in it. Thirty-six percent of the voters were Democrats, 32 percent Republicans, 29 percent independent and 3 percent others.