Majority say Trump has made race relations worse, poll finds

WASHINGTON — For all of President Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day pledges to unify the nation, he is presiding over a country in which a majority has a pessimistic view of race relations — and many hold him at least partly accountable.

Nearly a year into Trump’s presidency, 6 in 10 Americans say his election has led to worse race relations in the United States, according to a new Pew report on race relations. And 8 percent said Trump’s election has improved race relations, while 30 percent say it has not made a difference.

A year ago, shortly after the election, Americans seemed more optimistic about a Trump presidency: 25 percent of those surveyed expected race relations to improve. But 46 percent believed race relations would suffer under Trump after hearing him make comments considered racist by some and promoting questionable policy ideas during his campaign.

Pessimism about race relations among Americans, however, predates Trump’s election.

Pew says public views of race relations reached a high after Barack Obama’s inauguration, when 66 percent of Americans said they were generally good. But views plummeted in 2014 and 2015, following police shootings of unarmed black men.

In May 2015, 61 percent of Americans considered race relations generally bad, with many blaming Obama for the level of divisiveness.

A majority, 56 percent, currently hold negative views on race relations. Less than 40 percent say relations are generally favorable.

The Pew poll results are similar to those of a recent Washington Post-Survey Monkey poll, which said 82 percent of Americans think 2017 has been a bad year for race relations.

In the Post poll, Americans grew more concerned about racial issues after August’s white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a white supremacist killed a counterprotester and injured more than a dozen after ramming a car into the crowd.

A Post-ABC poll the week after the rally found that twice as many Americans disapproved as approved of Trump’s response — when he hesitated to single out the white-nationalist protesters, saying there were “some very fine people on both sides.”

The polls highlight that views on race vary on the survey responders’ own race: 4 in 10 white Americans say race relations are generally good, according to the Pew study. Twentyeight percent of blacks feel the same way. Only a third of Hispanics consider race relations generally good.

The number of blacks who think race relations are getting worse, 51 percent, is 10 points higher than that of white Americans.