Donald Trump has nearly doubled his approval rating among African Americans in the last year. Buzz60

Even as cable news networks debate reports of the existence of a recording of President Donald Trump using a racial slur, a new poll from Rasmussen Reports says that the president’s approval rating among African-Americans is at 36 percent, nearly double his support at this time last year.

“Today’s @realDonaldTrump approval ratings among black voters: 36%,” Rasmussen said in a tweet. “This day last year: 19%.”

That is a staggeringly high number for a man who only won 8 percent of the African-American vote in 2016.

It is even more unexpected given the president’s rocky history on matters related to race, including his current nasty feud with former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, who has alleged Trump said “n wordon the set of the reality-TV show “The Apprentice.”

Conservatives celebrated the poll as a sign of trouble for Democrats in upcoming elections.

Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative campus group Turning Point USA, cited the poll as evidence that Trump “is breaking the Democrat party as we know it.”

Rasmussen Reports

@Rasmussen_Poll

Today’s @realDonaldTrump approval ratings among black voters: 36%

This day last year: 19% http://bit.ly/preztrack  @POTUS @realDonaldTrump

“Trump’s Black Approval is at 36%,” Kirk tweeted. “If I was a Democrat I would be terrified. And it’s only going to get worse for them.”

A post on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s blog cheered the apparent increase in support, which defies the “non-stop media attacks.”

“The stunning data spells disaster for Democrats just months away from the 2018 midterm election, with the party’s base beginning to fracture as the economy roars to life under President Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress,” the post says.