A majority of Americans think President Donald Trump is racist, according to a new poll.

WASHINGTON — Most Americans think President Donald Trump is a racist, according to a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

More than half of adults think his policies have worsened the lives of Muslims and Hispanics, while almost half believe the president has worsened the lives of African-Americans. Of the 57 percent of adults who say the nation’s leader is a racist, 8 in 10 are black, three-quarters are Hispanic and almost half are white.

About 85 percent of Democrats say Trump is a racist, while 21 percent of Republicans say the same, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,337 adults from Feb. 15-19.

Experts say the findings should not come as a surprise considering America’s polarized views on race, as well as Trump’s divisive remarks in crucial moments last year as racial tensions came to a boil. When a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August left a woman dead and several others injured, many in the nation expected the president to condemn the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other hate groups that organized the rally.

Trump did, albeit belatedly, but then also said “there’s blame on both sides.”

The idea that Trump is a racist isn’t new, as he had a history of actions and comments perceived to be discriminatory toward people of color that spans four decades. For example, he was sued by the federal government in the 1970s for turning black tenants away from his buildings. As president, he has continued to question whether Barack Obama, the country’s first black president, was born in the United States.

Previous polls have asked about Trump’s biases, including one conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News in January, which found that 52 percent of Americans said the president was biased against black people. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in February found that 49 percent of registered voters say Trump is racist.

But the AP poll shows the highest percentages of people saying Trump is a racist.

The White House could not be immediately reached for comment. But Trump on multiple occasions has denied that he is racist.

About half of Americans, including a majority of African-Americans, think race relations are worse now than they were a year ago, according to the poll.

Sixty percent of those surveyed believe Muslims face disadvantages in American society, and 51 percent say the same for Hispanics.

The margin of sampling error for the 1,337 respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.