Men twice as likely as women to approve of Trump and think US president 'understands your problems', poll says

Men are twice as likely as women to approve of Donald Trump’s job performance, a new poll has indicated.

A survey by ABC News and The Washington Post found there was a vast gap in how men and women viewed the US president.

The survey found a new low of 27 per cent of women approve of Mr Trump’s job performance, in comparison to 49 per cent of men.

While some 41 per cent of men replied in the affirmative when asked whether Mr Trump “understands your problems”, just 27 per cent of women did the same.

The survey of 1,001 US adults, which was carried out in the final days of the longest government shutdown in history, found 48 per cent of men think the billionaire Republican leader is good at making political deals – while just 25 per cent of women agree.

Men were also almost twice as likely to characterise Mr Trump as honest and trustworthy – with 46 per cent of men saying he was, compared to just 26 per cent of female participants.

Some 43 per cent of men have confidence in Mr Trump to make the right decisions for the country’s future, in stark contrast to just 28 per cent of women. In fact, 57 per cent of women have no confidence in him at all, compared with 39 per cent of men.

Mr Trump – who has a record of making demeaning comments about women – has drawn fierce criticism from women’s rights organisations across the world.

Women in about 30 countries assembled earlier this month to protest against female oppression on the second anniversary of the first Women’s March.

The inaugural demonstration saw 6 million people across the world unite in anger over the election of Mr Trump. Some protesters wore cat-eared pink “pussy hats” as a sartorial rebuke of Mr Trump’s notorious leaked comments about grabbing women by the genitals.

The recent poll found the gender gap is also vast for the most basic measure of personal popularity – with 42 per cent of men but only 24 per cent of women seeing Mr Trump favourably as a person. Instead, 55 per cent of women see him “strongly” unfavourably – in comparison to 35 per cent of men.

The poll also found significant gender divisions exist even within the parties themselves. Among Democratic men 21 per cent see Mr Trump favourably as a person. Among Democratic women, it is just 5 per cent. Exactly the same gap also exists between independent men and women.

The assessment of Mr Trump, which measures his public standing across 10 key issues and character traits, comes as his overall job-approval rating languishes at 37 per cent.

As the president begins the second half of his first term, nearly six in 10 say they have an unfavourable view of the president as a person.