Politics

Trump Is the Least Popular Modern Prez for a Second Time

LOVE TO HATE HIM

Trump did smash a polling record this year, but perhaps not the one he expected.

US President Donald Trump.
ROBERTO SCHMIDT/Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump enters office for the second time with bottom-of-the-barrel approval ratings—second among modern presidents only to himself in 2017, according to Gallup.

The report is based on the first poll done on each president’s approval rating, which started in 1953, when President Dwight Eisenhower was first elected.

The only other president with a lower approval rating than Trump was himself, with a 45% approval rating when he entered office for the first time in 2017.

However, Trump did smash a polling record this year, with a historically high disapproval rating of 48% upon the start of his second term. His previous inaugural disapproval rating in 2017 was a then-record-smashing 45%.

An approval rating hovering near 50% is not uncommon for an incoming president, as was the case with George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

The Gallup researchers note that what is unusual about Trump’s early low approval rating is that an unprecedentedly high disapproval rating nearly mirrors it at the start of both of his terms.

Since President Bill Clinton entered office in 1993, disapproval ratings for presidents at the beginning of their administrations have been trending upward.

Far fewer polling respondents indicated no opinion about Trump’s first days in office than for previous presidents.

His approval rating is highly polarized along party lines. A whopping 91% of Republicans have a favorable view of Trump during his first days, while only 6% of Democrats do. 46% of independents have a positive view of the 47th president’s job performance.

The speed with which Trump has issued sweeping executive orders on culture war issues, immigration, environmental policy, defense, foreign policy, and other matters is thought by Gallup to be a major reason for Trump’s high disapproval rating in his early days in office.

The survey finds a stark divide on the issue of his executive actions, with 61% of Democrats, 37% of independents, and only 13% of Republicans believing Trump is moving too fast in the early days of his second term.

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