Politics

Majority of Americans think Trump's doing a poor job and the country is headed in the wrong direction: Poll

Americans sound off on Trump administration's performance
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Americans sound off on Trump administration's performance

President Donald Trump's job approval ratings are taking a hit this week, on the heels of the Republicans' inability to pass a health-care reform bill.

Trump's job approval stands at just 42 percent, according to an NBC News|SurveyMonkey Poll. A majority of individuals polled — 56 percent — said they disapprove of the job he is doing in the White House. Trump's net approval rating is now negative 14, down 3 points from negative 11 last month.

Source: NBC|SurveyMonkey Poll

The poll also found that most of the respondents, or 61 percent, feel the country is headed in the wrong direction. That's up from 57 percent of respondents polled a month ago.

The poll began gathering data on Friday — just after the GOP's health-care bill was yanked from a scheduled House vote — through Tuesday. The decision to withdraw the bill, which was backed by Speaker Paul Ryan, delays one of Trump's main campaign promises to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Thirty-eight percent said they were paying "very close" attention to the health-care news, and another 38 percent said they were watching "somewhat closely."

Though approval ratings are historically volatile, Trump's numbers have been dropping across the board this week.

According to Gallup's three-day rolling average poll, Trump's approval slid to 35 percent as of Tuesday, down from 36 percent on the previous day. His disapproval jumped to 59 percent from 56 percent in the same period.

Presidents dating as far back as Jimmy Carter all had approval ratings of 53 percent or higher at roughly the same point in their first terms, according to Gallup.

It remains uncertain how low approval ratings will impact Trump. The latest NBC News poll found that just 24 percent of Republicans think the GOP is united. Further, 52 percent believe the party will be undivided in 2018.

—CNBC's Jacob Pramuk and NBC News contributed to this report.

The NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll was conducted online from March 24 through March 28 among a national sample of 7,675 adults who are likely to vote. Respondents for this nonprobability survey were selected from the nearly 3 million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. Results have an error estimate of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points. For full results and methodology, click here.