In the first poll since Donald Trump's Senate acquittal earlier this week, the president's approval rating has continued to rise after it hit the highest point since he was inaugurated in 2017 during the impeachment trial.
The latest Hill/HarrisX poll, released on Friday afternoon, showed Trump's approval rating slightly rising by two points to 49 percent from 47 percent.
Although the difference falls within the survey's margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, it's unsurprising as the president's approval rating has been steadily increasing for months. The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters online between February 6-7.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's 2020 reelection campaign and the White House for comment.
One day before the Senate voted to acquit Trump, Gallup released a poll conducted amid the impeachment trial, that found that 49 percent of registered voters approved of the job he is doing in the White House, the president's highest-ever since entering office.
In that poll, 50 percent disapproved of his performance and 1 percent indicated they were unsure. By comparison, the highest approval rating that Trump had hit prior to this week was in April 2019, when he was at 49 percent of support.
The latest Gallup poll showed that while support for Trump among Democrats fell three percentage points—10 percent to 7 percent—from results released early January, his approval among independents and Republicans have continued to rise. The president garnered 94 percent of support among Republicans, a 6 percent increase, while Independents gave him a 42 percent approval rating, a 5 percent increase.
The Senate on Wednesday voted against removing Trump from office—48-52 on abuse of power and 47-53 on the obstruction of Congress charge—making him the third U.S. president in history to be acquitted from impeachment articles approved by the House. The chamber needed 67 votes, two-thirds, to convict Trump, a longshot outcome given the political makeup of the body's members.
Republican Mitt Romney was the only lawmaker that broke from party ranks in the vote. The Utah senator voted to convict the president on one abuse of power charge. He was the only GOP defection and his decision made him the first U.S. senator to vote to remove a president from his own party.
Romney's support for a conviction refused Trump the unanimous support from his party that he had hoped for and quickly drew intense criticism from the president's inner circle and his allies.
