Dr. Anthony Fauci and Andrew Cuomo remain the most trusted leaders on coronavirus, while Donald Trump and Jared Kushner are the least trusted

• Dr. Fauci and Gov. Cuomo remain the leaders Americans trust the most when it comes to official advice on the coronavirus crisis, while Trump and White House advisor Jared Kushner still rank at the bottom.
• Insider conducted a SurveyMonkey Audience poll to gauge how much Americans trust 10 top Trump administration and Democratic officials for their leadership on the COVID-19 outbreak on a scale of 1 to 5.
• Americans gave Dr. Fauci an average rating of 3.8 out of 5, with 39% of respondents giving him a rating of 5 and 64% trusting him overall.
• Americans rated Trump a 2.3 out of 5 for trustworthiness on average, with a full of 50% of respondents strongly distrusting him and just 19% somewhat or strongly trusting him.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci and Gov. Andrew Cuomo remain the most trusted leaders Americans look to for official advice on the coronavirus crisis, while President Donald Trump and White House advisor Jared Kushner still rank at the bottom.

In late March, mid-April, and now late April, Insider conducted a SurveyMonkey Audience poll to gauge how much Americans trust 10 top Trump administration and Democratic officials for their leadership on the COVID-19 outbreak on a scale of 1 to 5.

We asked: "When it comes to the official advice regarding coronavirus, please rate how much you trust the following messengers on a scale on 1 to 5." On the scale, 1 means strongly distrust, 2 means somewhat distrust, 3 means neither trust nor distrust, 4 means somewhat trust, and 5 means strongly trust.

Americans' levels of trust in the top officials' handling of the crisis has remained remarkably steady across the three surveys.

In the most recent poll, conducted April 28-29:

• Americans gave Dr. Fauci an average rating of 3.8 out of 5, with 39% of respondents giving him a rating of 5 and 64% trusting him overall.
• Cuomo was rated a 3.2 out of 5 on average, with about a quarter of respondents giving him ratings of 5, 4, and 3 respectively.
• Respondents rated White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx 3.1 out of 5 on average for trustworthiness.
• Health & Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was rated a 3.0 out of 5 on average.
• Americans also rated Gov. Gavin Newsom of California a 3.0 out of 5 on average.
• Former Vice President and presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was rated 2.7 out of 5 on average for trustworthiness on the coronavirus.
• Americans gave Vice President Mike Pence a rating of 2.6 out of 5 on average. Over a third of respondents said they strongly distrust Pence.
• Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin got a score of 2.5 out of 5 on average, with 32% of respondents expressing strong distrust of his performance.
• Americans rated Trump a 2.3 out of 5 for trustworthiness on average, with a full of 50% of respondents strongly distrusting him and just 19% somewhat or strongly trusting him.
• Kushner also was rated 2.3 out of 5. Two out of five respondents said they strongly distrust him, with only 17% somewhat or strongly trusting him.

In the same timeframe since Insider started asking Americans to rate top public leaders on their response to COVID-19, both Trump's general approval ratings and the approval on his handling of the coronavirus have steadily fallen.

After a short-lived "rally around the flag" effect that give his approval a bump, Trump's general approval ratings have fallen from 45.8% approval and 49% disapproval in late March to 42.6% approval and 52.7% disapproval by late April, according to FiveThirtyEight's weighted tracker of approval polls.

In Morning Consult polling, the percentage of Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump's handling of the crisis has sharply risen from 28% in mid-March to 41% on April 24-26. In that same time, the percentage of those who strongly approve has fallen from 30% to 23%.

In the wake of Trump's declining poll numbers and controversial comments he made wondering whether sunlight and disinfectant could be injected to cure coronavirus, Trump's advisers have reportedly encouraged him to cut back on his lengthy daily briefings, which they identify as the culprit of his declining favorability.

On Wednesday, CNN and the Associated Press reported that Trump exploded at his re-election campaign manager Brad Parscale for his poor approval and internal polling data, which showed him weakly positioned against Biden.

Meanwhile, Cuomo has experienced a significant bump to his approval ratings. According to an April 27 Siena College poll, the New York governor now enjoys a net approval of +56 percentage points among New Yorkers, with 77% approval and 21% disapproval.

"Mired in middling poll numbers for the last two years, Cuomo is feeling the love from New Yorkers of all stripes in year three of his third term, and his first global pandemic," said pollster Steven Greenberg in a Monday release, adding, "When it comes to whom New Yorkers trust more to make decisions about reopening the state and its economy – the President or the Governor – it's not even close."

SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weigh its sample based on race or income. A total of 1,109 respondents were collected April 28-29, 2020, a margin of error plus or minus 3 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.

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