What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending May 5, 2018

While the Mueller investigation stumbles on from one news leak to the next, a lot of voters appear to be feeling pretty good about life in Donald Trump’s America.

The U.S. unemployment rate in April dropped to its lowest level since 2000, with black and Hispanic unemployment at record lows. Forty-one percent (41%) of voters now say the country is headed in the right direction after running in the 20s during the President Obama’s final year in office.

Voter confidence that the United States is winning the War on Terror is at its highest level since Osama bin Laden was killed nearly seven years ago.

Most voters also agree with the president that the government should stop the caravan of Central Americans now at the Mexican border from entering the United States. Even more say failing to stop them will lead to more illegal immigration.

After years of deteriorating U.S.-Israel relations under Obama, voters expected a change for the better with Trump's election, and many now think that has come to fruition.

If Trump brings the North Korea crisis to a peaceful end, Americans think he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize as much as Obama now merits the one he received in 2009.

Trump's overall job approval in the Rasmussen Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll again hit a recent high of 51% at week’s end. He’s running ahead of where Obama was at this stage of his presidency.

The president earned a monthly job approval of 49% in April, up three points from March.

Now that Gallup has quit the field, Rasmussen Reports is the only nationally recognized public opinion firm that still tracks President Trump's job approval ratings on a daily basis. If your organization is interested in a weekly or longer sponsorship of Rasmussen Reports' Daily Presidential Tracking Poll,  please send e-mail to beth@rasmussenreports.com .

Just over half of Republicans - and one-third of all voters - say they see eye-to eye politically with Trump. The rest tend to believe he's more conservative than they are. Few accuse him of being more liberal.

By contrast, just 24% of GOP voters say the average Republican in Congress thinks about the same way they do. Democrats are twice as likely as Republicans to identify ideologically with their representatives in Congress.

Voters also see more chance for Trump’s reelection these days and strongly believe that impeachment is not the best campaign strategy for Democrats running for Congress.

Yet, as the latest Rasmussen Minute notes, it seems Trump can do no right according to the polls that got it all wrong in 2016. That leaves many wondering if today's polls are a reflection of public opinion or an attempt to shape it.

Rasmussen Reports got it right in 2016, but the media forces that oppose Trump are calling us “outliers” again for showing higher approval ratings for the president than they do.

Speaking of policy differences, Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders is looking ahead to the 2020 presidential election with a proposed federal government program that guarantees all Americans a $15-an-hour job with health insurance. Nearly half of voters like the idea. It’s important to note, however, that our question didn’t attach a price tag to Sanders’ proposal since he hasn’t come up with one himself yet.

In other surveys last week:

-- Contrary to the courts, voters are far more supportive of allowing a business owner to refuse a customer service for religious reasons than for political ones.

-- Do Americans agree with a Boston preschool that has prohibited students from identifying a “best friend” for fear that other children will feel excluded?

-- Here’s a clue: 68% think political correctness is a problem in America today.

-- Forty-four percent (44%) of Americans favor a ban on disposable plastic shopping bags in the state where they live.

Visit the Rasmussen Reports home page for the latest current polling coverage of events in the news. The page is updated several times each day.

Remember, if it's in the news, it's in our polls.