Majority of Florida voters disapprove state's new resident — Donald Trump

About a month after Donald Trump changed his residence from New York to Florida, a new poll shows a majority of voters in Florida disapprove of Trump’s job performance.

In a Saint Leo University poll released Tuesday, 51.4% of Florida voters disapprove of Trump’s job in the White House, while 45.6% approve.

Voters in Florida mirror the attitude of most Americans, who continue to disapprove of Trump’s job. An average of national polls from FiveThirtyEight shows Trump’s approval rating at 41.7%, while a clear majority, 53.4%, disapprove.

Trump officially moved from New York to Florida in late September, according to the New York Times.

Adding to Trump’s woes in his new home state, two polls released in mid-October — after he moved — showed Trump trailing a potential Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, among Florida voters.

A mid-October University of North Florida poll showed Trump trailing Biden by a 5-point margin, 48% to 43%. A New York Times/Sienna College poll the same month also showed Florida voters supporting Biden by a 46%-to-44% margin. Biden currently leads in national polls among Democratic primary voters.

Trump’s slump in Florida follows a track record of broken promises impacting the state’s residents.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump vowed that “those with preexisting conditions will always get the quality coverage they need.” When in power, Trump backed a lawsuit trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act, a law that ensures people with preexisting conditions cannot be denied health insurance by providers and ensures people with preexisting conditions do not have to pay more for coverage. And in a court filing, the Trump administration argued that the law protecting people with preexisting conditions “must be struck down,” adding that rather than protect certain provisions, “the proper course is to strike it down in its entirety.”

According to Trump’s Broken Promises, a project by the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund, 7.8 million Florida residents with preexisting conditions could lose health care protections if Trump has his way.

The same project found that more than half a million Florida residents will pay higher taxes as a result of the Republican tax law praised by Trump and fellow Republicans. In Florida, the average tax cut for the wealthiest one percent was almost $100,000, while the bottom 80% of earners saw a$543 cut, about one-half of one percent of what the richest received.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.