Just 63 percent of Republicans say moral leadership is a "very important" quality in a president, down 23 points from Bill Clinton's presidency, according to the latest Gallup poll.
Overall, 66 percent of adults say moral leadership is important in a president, down 6 points from 1994-1999 when the scandal-ridden Clinton was president, according to the survey.
The results come amid another find that just 40 percent of adults believe that President Donald Trump is providing strong moral leadership.
The results:
- 86 percent of Republicans said moral leadership was very important when Clinton was president.
- 72 percent of adults overall said moral leadership was very important when Clinton was president.
- 69 percent of Independents said moral leadership was very important when Clinton was president vs. 62 percent now.
Despite the precipitous drop in importance for Republicans, the vast majority of them believe Trump is a strong moral leader.
Those results:
- 77 percent of Republicans say Trump is providing strong moral leadership.
- 38 percent of Independents say Trump is providing strong moral leadership vs. 60 percent who say he isn't.
- Overall, 40 percent say Trump is providing strong moral leadership vs. 59 percent who say he's weak on moral leadership.
"Arguably, Trump and Clinton have had more character concerns than other recent presidents, but their political allies stood by them. Doing so may have forced their supporters to minimize the importance of having a president who is a strong moral leader," according to Gallup's analysis.
Gallup conducted telephone interviews May 1-10 with a random sample of 1,024 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
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