Rahm Emanuel's Approval Rating Plummets to 18 Percent: Poll

CHICAGO, IL -- A new poll suggests that more than half of Chicagoans believe that Mayor Rahm Emanuel should resign following the release of a police dashcam video showing a white police officer fatally shooting a black teen and a federal investigation of the Chicago Police Department.

Slightly over half of 739 likely voters polled felt Emanuel should resign, and 64 percent thought the mayor wasn’t being truthful when he said he hadn’t seen the controversial video when the city was negotiating a settlement with 17-year-old Laquan McDonald’s family last spring.

Further, Emanuel’s approval ratings have plummeted to their lowest -- 18 percent -- since he took office in 2011.

The poll was commissioned by Illinois Observer and conducted by Ogden and Fry after Emanuel fired police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

Critics say that Emanuel’s approval ratings were already starting to sink with the passage of the largest property tax increase in the city’s history, the Barbara Byrd-Bennett scandal, and looming teacher’s strike.

The mayor also fought efforts for a Justice Department investigation of the city’s police department to determine if a pattern of civil rights violations exists, calling it “misguided.” He has since done an about face in an effort to get ahead of the growing political maelstrom and activists’ calls for his resignation.

The poll all suggests that Emanuel’s credibility has been weakened as he addresses the Chicago City Council on police accountability this Wednesday.

“People are going to be skeptical because they’ve been told one thing and they’ve seen nothing happen,” Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) told ABC 7 Chicago.