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Poll: 100 days from election, 80% say country is heading in wrong direction

26 July 2020
Dan Ackermann

President Trump is facing serious headwinds with 100 days left until the election, according to an AP-NORC poll out Sunday.

By the numbers: 8 in 10 respondents said the country is heading in the wrong direction — more than at any other point during Trump's presidency.

  • Just 32% support Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, also a new low in the AP-NORC tracker. 81% of Republicans still approve of Trump's job performance, but only 68% support his handling of the coronavirus.
  • 38% of Americans say the economy is good, down from 67% in January. Trump’s standing on the economy has also fallen in recent months.
  • Trump has a 38% job approval rating, within the range it has stayed for most of his presidency.

The bottom line: The last time a candidate sustained as big a national lead for as long as Joe Biden has over Trump was 24 years ago, when Bill Clinton romped past Bob Dole, according to the New York Times' Nate Cohn.

But as a reminder of how many twists we have ahead, consider Oct. 7, 2016 — one month before Election Day, Axios' Mike Allen points out.

  • On thatsingle day, the "Access Hollywood" tape surfaced, WikiLeaks posted hacked Clinton campaign emails, and the Obama administration formally accused the Kremlin of hacking the Democratic National Committee.
  • FBI director Jim Comey's bombshell was three weeks away.

Worth noting: About third of Americans are entirely opposed to reopening schools in the fall, which the Trump administration has aggressively pushed for in recent weeks. Nearly half of respondents say it would require major adjustments.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.