Washington CNN  — 

Bolstered by the strong economy and quickly shifting numbers on tax reform, President Donald Trump’s approval rating hit 40% in a new Quinnipiac poll on Wednesday, his best score in this survey in seven months.

A slim majority of voters, 51%, say they approve of how Trump is handling the economy, his highest mark on this question since his inauguration. Seven in 10 American voters, 70%, say the US economy is excellent or good – the best mark on this question since 2001. Three in four, 75%, have positive views of their own personal financial situations.

This marks at least the fifth recent national survey to show Trump’s approval rating climbing over the last two months. (The most recent Gallup and CNN polls also show Trump at 40%, while recent polling from Fox News and Monmouth has also shown Trump’s scores on the rise.)

And for the first time, voters say Trump, rather than former President Barack Obama, is primarily responsible for the state of the economy, 48% for Trump vs. 41% for Obama. This is a reversal from Obama’s 49-40% advantage last month and a stark contrast to Obama’s 67-19% spread last March.

Tax reform on the upswing

Voters are now virtually evenly split on Trump’s handling of taxes: 45% approve and 47% disapprove. That’s up 10 points from a 35% approval rating on this topic just before the GOP’s sweeping tax reform legislation passed. The tax plan itself has experienced a 13-point jump in approval since it passed, from 26% to 39%.

And Americans are now evenly split 28% to 27% on whether the bill will increase or decrease their own taxes – a number that changed dramatically from the 44% increase, 16% decrease split in the days before the bill passed. Still, 62% think the plan mostly helps the wealthy, a number nearly unchanged since November.

Favorable views of the Republican Party are up from 24% before tax reform passed to 32% now, though a majority of voters, 51%, still view the governing party unfavorably.

This Quinnipiac University poll was conducted Feb. 2-5, 2018, among 1,333 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is ±3.3 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.