Americans say, 50% to 35%, that President Donald Trump is a racist, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds, virtually unchanged from public opinion polling in February.
An overwhelming 88% majority of Trump voters say that the president is not racist, while an equally overwhelming 92% of those who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election say he is. Those who stayed home for the election or supported another candidate say, 49% to 22%, that Trump is a racist.
The poll was taken following the series of racist tweets Trump directed at four minority congresswomen, but before one of his rallies devolved into a racist chant of “Send her back!” about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)
Americans say, 60% to 27%, that Trump’s tweets were inappropriate, and 49% to 35% that they were racist. Responses were again deeply divided along political lines. (Another survey, from USA Today and Ipsos, found similar results, with two-thirds of those aware of the controversy calling Trump’s tweets offensive and a majority calling his comments un-American.)
Although a handful of Republicans in Congress have condemned Trump’s comments, others have ducked the question or made excuses for the president.
Thirty-eight percent of Americans said they believe most or all Republicans agree with what Trump said in his tweets, with only 28% saying Trump’s comments had the support of just some or almost none of his party. About one-third weren’t sure.
Of those Americans who found Trump’s tweets to be racist, inappropriate or both, two-thirds said that Republicans did not do enough to condemn them, with just 8% saying the GOP had been sufficiently condemnatory.
In a separate HuffPost/YouGov survey, about one-third of black Americans said they had been told to go back where they came from at least once, as did 28% of Hispanic Americans, 18% of white Americans and 38% of those from another racial background, including Asian Americans, whose numbers were too small to break out separately. Given the context, not all the “yes” responses were in good faith (“Every time Nancy Pelosi speaks, I hear, ‘Go back where you came from,’” one white Trump voter offered). But some revealed both recent slights and hurts that have lingered for decades.
Here are some of the responses, edited for length, style and clarity:
“A constant taunt by white kids when I was growing up was ‘Go back to Africa,’ as if I didn’t belong in the U.S.”
“Growing up in biased America, that phrase ‘Go back where you came from’ was something of a mantra in my youth or formative years. At 86 years of age, I still have to confront an occasional racial slur in certain places.”
“I was told during civil rights marches in the 1960s.”
“I am a Jew who grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, I was told more than once to go to Israel or someplace else because I was a ‘Christ killer.’”
“I am of Chilean descent (both parents were born in Chile) and at work, a Trump supporter called me ‘the Mexican’ and said Trump would deport me and my family.”
“I was in elementary school and my friend was trying to teach me Spanish. That’s when another classmate said, ‘Go back to your own country.’”
“I was riding my bike to school in 1954 California when I heard a child yell, ‘Go back from where you came from!’ I was confused, as I was born in Pasadena. I had known that people said things like that, but to me, I was confused and hurt.”
“I was speaking Spanish once and someone told me to speak English or go back to where I came from. I’m Puerto Rican.”
The HuffPost/YouGov polls, each consisting of 1,000 completed interviews, were conducted July 15-16 and July 16-17 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
HuffPost has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion polling. More details on the polls’ methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some but not all potential survey errors. YouGov’s reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.