Washington(CNN) President Donald Trump's approval rating has once again reached 40%, while earning high marks for his handling of the government's response to recent hurricanes, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.
A broad 64% of Americans say they approve of how Trump's government reacted to the recent storms, including two in three independents (66%). Nine in 10 Republicans support his reaction (90%), and even Democrats are evenly divided on Trump's response to the crises, with 44% both approving and disapproving.
Support is not as clear for his foreign policy. Escalating tensions with North Korea have raised concerns about that country; half of Americans now view North Korea as an immediate threat to the United States, climbing from 37% to 50% since April. The administration announced new sanctions against North Korea Thursday. Half say they disapprove of Trump's handling of the situation with North Korea (50%) vs. four in 10 who say they approve (41%) -- little changed from Trump's rating in August on the topic.
Indeed, a deteriorating number of Americans believe the crisis can be resolved by economic and diplomatic means alone (43%), sinking to its lowest level yet on this question and down 10 points since 2012. A majority say they favor military action (58%) if the US can't accomplish its goals by diplomatic and economic efforts -- up 20 points from 2012. Still, more than six in 10 (63%) say the US should take military action only if other nations support and participate in it. Only three in 10 (29%) say the US should take action unilaterally if it decides to take military action.
Approval for the President overall is divided sharply along party lines: 85% of Republicans approve of his job performance vs. only 9% of Democrats who say the same. Trump gets a roughly even split on his handling of the economy, though a broad 63% think economic conditions today are good -- up six points since Trump took office to match the highest mark since 2001. Trump's rating on health care remains low at just 31% approval during the Senate's last-ditch push to pass a reform bill. Overall, 55% of Americans disapprove of Trump's job performance. Thirty-eight percent approved of his performance in August.
Almost half of Americans (49%) say they believe global warming is a major cause in the increase of recent hurricanes -- up from just 36% in a 2005 poll. About one in four (28%) -- including a majority of Republicans (55%) say it's not a cause at all. Partisan divides are stark: 78% of Democrats believe climate change plays a major role, up 30 percentage points from 2005. On the other hand, only 15% of Republicans say the same, down 10 points in the same time frame. Almost half of independents, for their part, believe it plays a major role (48%) -- up from one in three over a decade ago (34%). On a separate question, three in four Americans (74%) support hurricane aid to victims even if no other correspondent funding is cut, including a broad seven in 10 conservatives (69%).
The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS by telephone September 17 to 20 among a random national sample of 1,053 adults. The margin of sampling error for results among the full sample is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.