President Donald Trump's military deployment is widely unpopular because voters don't trust his justification, according to new polling data.
The president is deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to Illinois, Oregon and other states to crack down on what he describes as out-of-control crime, but CNN data analyst Harry Enten presented fresh polling that shows how strongly Americans oppose the use of military troops on domestic soil.
"It's a political loser," Enten said. "Donald Trump may think it's a political winner, but it's a political loser. Opposed to Trump deploying in a U.S. cities, active-duty U.S. military, 61 percent, the National Guard, in particular, 58 percent. When you get three in five Americans agreeing on anything, you know, if that is on the opposition side, it's political loser, and among independents who, of course, that key bloc in the middle of the United States political electorate, we're talking about two-thirds of independents there, and about who opposed the deployment of either active-duty U.S. military or National Guard into U.S. cities."
"I think it's that they don't buy Donald Trump's case for why these troops must go into the U.S. cities," he added. "What you see is the majority takes the case is that Trump may use the National Guard to intimidate political rivals at 51 percent, just 42 percent of Americans agree with the Donald Trump's stance that, in fact, big city crime will spiral out of control if the National Guard doesn't go into U.S. cities."
He continued, "The Democratic opposition's case is winning here, and that is a big reason why. What you see is you get about three in five Americans saying they don't want troops going into U.S. cities."
The numbers also show that voters feel like Trump hasn't focused enough on the issues they elected him to address, Enten said.
"The American people believe, yes, Donald Trump has taken his eye off the ball," Enten said. "There is too much focus on putting troops in the U.S. cities, 52 percent, the majority of Americans agree that the Trump administration is focusing too much on that. Where do they want him to go? They want him to focus on lowering prices – 75 percent say there is too little focus on lowering prices.
"This is the reason that Donald Trump was put in office, was to lower prices, and at this particular point, three in four Americans say there is too little focus. Donald Trump is focusing on the wrong things, and they don't like the way he's going about it, and this, my friends, will tell the entire story if it holds a year from now going into the midterm elections."
"If the Republicans lose control of the House, they lose control of the Senate, it will be because they believe that Donald Trump has lost focus. He is not keeping his eye on the ball, and they believe he is not focusing enough on lowering prices."
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