What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending May 26, 2018

It’s Memorial Day weekend!  Most Americans are marking it as the start of summer—unofficially, and most are also planning their summer vacations.

In perhaps the biggest news of the week, President Trump on Thursday cancelled his June 12 summit meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, citing hostile statements from North Korea as the reason, and is instead preparing further sanctions against that country.

Voters just two weeks ago said they were growing more confident that Trump is on track to disarm North Korea’s nukes. But in March, voters were skeptical that the meeting would lessen the threat posed by North Korea.

On the home front, public sentiment toward Trump has been warming.

Most Republicans are now convinced that high-level federal law enforcement officials tried illegally to stop Trump from being president.

Also, Republicans have closed the gap in the Rasmussen Reports Generic Congressional Ballot, and 42% of Likely U.S. Voters now think the country is heading in the right direction.

Meanwhile, Trump was on Long Island Wednesday holding a forum about the notorious MS-13 street gang, which most voters see as a serious problem and don’t believe he is handling too aggressively.

However, voters still view Planned Parenthood favorably and aren’t overly supportive of the Trump administration’s new ban on taxpayer funding of abortion.

Trump may not be popular with a lot of voters, but not many of them think Vice President Mike Pence would be a suitable replacement.

First Senator John McCain called Trump supporters a bunch of "crazies" during the 2016 presidential campaign. Then candidate Trump said McCain was “not a war hero." This week’s Rasmussen Minute takes a closer look at the Trump-McCain war in a razor-thin Republican Senate majority.

Confidence in the economy has also been trending up.

A new report released Thursday confirmed what homeowners were already feeling: Home values are on the rise and more homeowners than ever are breathing a sigh of relief that the value of their property outweighs their mortgage.

While fewer than half of Americans think the state they live in will be able to pay out promised pension benefits to public workers, few are willing to pay more in taxes to cover them.

In other surveys last week:

-- A majority of voters have a favorable impression of former President Barack Obama, but do they miss him? Democrats do, but Republicans haven’t looked back.

-- It’s been a rough couple of months for U.S. airlines, particularly Southwest, after a passenger died when one of the plane’s windows broke mid-flight and a similar incident happened again in early May. Nonetheless, Americans still generally believe air travel in this country is safe, though they’re slightly less likely to say it’s safer than in the rest of the world now.

-- Print newspapers have long been a dying form of media, with more Americans saying they rarely or never read one. But they are now less confident that other news sources can make up the difference if the newspaper finally goes out of print.

-- Disgraced actor and comedian Bill Cosby was found guilty last month of three counts of aggravated sexual assault and is set to be sentenced in September. Many have cited his age and declining health as potential reasons to not pursue a prison sentence, but Americans want to see him pay in both time and money for his crimes.

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.