Half in US 'not at all confident' in Trump ability to choose qualified Cabinet members: Survey

Many Americans share a lack of confidence in President-elect Trump's ability to nominate qualified individuals for incoming Cabinet or key administration roles, a new survey shows.

The Associated Press/NORC Research Center poll, released Friday, shows that 55 percent of the public are either "slightly" or "not at all" confident in Trump's picks. Another 27 percent said they were "extremely" or very confident" in the president-elect's ability to choose qualified people to serve in his second term.

Divided by party, 87 percent of Democrats and 46 percent of independents said they were "slightly" or "not confident at all" in his ability to pick quality nominees. About 58 percent of Republicans said the opposite, according to the survey.

Just more than half of respondents said they were also less confident in Trump's ability to effectively manage the White House (52 percent), military (54 percent) and government spending (52 percent), the poll found.

Democrats make up the largest share of skeptics, with more than 80 percent being slightly or not at all confident in the president-elect's ability to handle the issues. Just more than 40 percent of independents reached the same conclusion, the data shows.

On the other end of the political spectrum, about 6 in 10 GOP voters are extremely or very confident in the incoming commander in chief’s ability to effectively oversee government spending, the military and run the White House, according to the survey.

The AP-NORC poll was conducted Dec. 5-9 among 1,251 adults. The margin of error was 3.7 percentage points.

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