Donald Trump's Approval Rating Reaches Highest Point Since 2017 as Administration Battles Coronavirus, New Poll Shows

President Donald Trump's approval rating reached its highest point in three years Tuesday as his administration continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll.

The CNN poll conducted by SSRS, an independent research company, found that 45 percent of respondents approve of the way Trump is handling his job, while 51 percent disapprove and 4 percent had no opinion. The poll surveyed 1,112 people and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percent.

Trump's approval rating has hit 45 percent only one other time during his presidency, and that was less than two months after he took office in 2017. That poll showed the president had a 45 percent approval rating, with 52 percent disapproving, on March 5, 2017.

The new CNN poll showed that 42 percent of people believe the federal government is doing a good job at preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus in the United States. That rating is down from a CNN poll result in early March, in which 49 percent said the federal government was doing a good job in combating the pandemic while 43 percent said it was doing a poor job.

The new poll also asked those surveyed if they felt the worst of the outbreak was behind us or it was still to come. Forty-four percent said the worst was behind us, while 52 percent said the worst was yet to come. This was a dramatic change since an April 7 CNN poll that found only 17 percent of those surveyed felt the worst was behind us and 80 percent felt the worst was to come.

The U.S. now has over 1.35 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus, with 81,650 deaths reported, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. So far, 232,733 people have recovered from the virus's disease, COVID-19.

Over 9.38 million coronavirus tests have been conducted in the United States, which is "by far the most in the world," according to a White House statement released Monday. This makes the U.S. "the world's leader in coronavirus testing," the statement said.

"The United States is testing more than every country on Earth, including South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy. In May, every single State will be able to test more people per capita than South Korea has tested per capita in four months since the outbreak began," according to the statement.

The White House also said the federal government will be "sending $11 billion to help states, territories, and tribes meet the testing goals set out by their Governors and tribal leaders."