In September, 47 percent of people in non-metro areas approved of Trump while 47 percent disapproved. That is down from Trump’s first four weeks in office, when 55 percent said they approved of the president while 39 percent disapproved.
The poll found that Trump has lost support in rural areas among men, whites and people who never went to college. He lost support with rural Republicans and rural voters who supported him on Election Day.
And while Trump still gets relatively high marks in the poll for his handling of the economy and national security, rural Americans are increasingly unhappy with Trump’s record on immigration, a central part of his presidential campaign.
Forty-seven percent of rural Americans said in September they approved of the president’s handling of immigration, down from 56 percent during his first month in office.
Poll respondents who were interviewed by Reuters gave different reasons for their dissatisfaction with the president on immigration.
A few said they are tired of waiting for Trump to make good on his promise to build a wall along America’s southern border, while others said they were uncomfortable with his administration’s efforts to restrict travel into the United States.
“There should be some sort of compromise between a free flow of people over the border and something that’s more controlled,” said Drew Carlson, 19, of Warrensburg, Missouri, who took the poll.
But Trump’s “constant fixation on deportation is a little bit unsettling to me.”