You know who loves President Donald Trump? Business owners.
According to the latest Small Business Survey from SurveyMonkey, Trump’s approval rating rose to 60% in the third quarter of 2019. It’s the highest mark he has received in the survey’s three-year history, but it makes sense with most small business owners leaning to the right.
A further breakdown of the stats show that of the 60% who approve of the president’s work, 39% strongly approve.
There’s a pretty clear party-line split in the data, too. Republican business owners clearly love what the president is doing with 93% approving, while 86% of Democrat owners disapprove. Independents seem to side with the left as well with 62% disapproving and 37% backing Trump.
The data matches results from a fourth quarter CNBC/SurveyMonkey survey that looked at Small Business Confidence. In that query, 24% of small business owners were confident progress in the U.S.-China trade war would have a positive effect on their businesses in 2020, up from 16% in the third quarter.
Progress in the trade talks between the world’s two largest economies has been foggy as both sides have agreed to work on hammering out “phase one” of a new deal, but nothing has been put to paper yet. New snags could arise after Beijing announced Monday it would bar U.S. Naval visits to Hong Kong after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a human rights bill supporting pro-democratic movements in the region.
And as far as the ongoing impeachment hearings, Trump supporters fear the outcome of the inquiry could hurt their businesses.
“Republicans are more likely than Democrats to anticipate consequences for their businesses as a result of the impeachment,” Senior Research Scientist Laura Wronski said, according to CNBC. “Whether it’s because they view it as a political distraction that prevents people from working on real policy changes or because they’re taking it a step further and they’re concerned about Trump leaving office, we can’t say that much from these data.”
The issue that matters most to Trump’s supporters, with 39% of the vote, is “Jobs and the Economy.” Health care is the top issue for the disapproving crowd with 25% of the vote.
