In the past year, the percentage of Americans approving the wall has increased from 34% to 42%. Assuming 250 million Americans of voting age, that means Trump managed, in the past year, to convince an additional 20 million eligible voters to support his position.
Among college-educated voters, support for the wall rose 13 points, from 30% to 43%. That means that college-educated voters are now slightly more likely to support the wall than those without degrees. The opposite was true last year.
“Strong” opposition to the wall has declined significantly, from 52 percent last January to 38 percent now.
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Mind you, these findings still show that the majority of Americans oppose the wall. (54-42, with 4 undecided).
It’s also worth noting that the majority of Americans blame Trump for the shutdown. About twice as many blame Trump as blame the Democrats. (53-29, with the other 18% either in the “don’t know” or “both” camps).
Americans overwhelmingly reject Trump’s depiction of the border situation as a “crisis.” Only 24% agree with that. On the other hand, another 48% call it a serious problem, so almost 3/4 of Americans believe that the border situation is a serious problem or worse. (The rest are either undecided or in the “not a serious problem” camp.)