US President Donald Trump started as the most unpopular new US president in the history of modern polling. After seven months, things have only gotten worse.
Plunging into undesirably uncharted territory, Trump is setting records with his dismally low approval ratings, including the lowest mark ever for a president in his first year.
In fact, with four months left in the year, Trump has already spent more time at less than 40 percent than any other first-year president.
At 34 percent, his current approval rating is worse than former US president Barack Obama’s ever was.
Trump’s early descent in the polls defies some long-standing patterns about how Americans view their president.
Such plunges are often tied to external forces that the president only partially controls, such as an all-consuming international crisis or a sluggish economy.
In Trump’s case, the economy is humming and the foreign crises have been kept to a minimum.
Americans also tend to be optimistic about their new leaders, typically cutting them some slack during their early days in office.
Not with Trump.
It is a jarring juxtaposition for the reality TV star-turned-president who spent months on the campaign trail obsessing about his poll numbers and reading them to rally crowds while vowing that he would win so much as president that Americans would get sick of the winning.
Since he took office, the poll number recitations have stopped.
Trump is now viewed positively by only 37 percent of Americans, according to Gallup’s most recent weekly estimate; Obama’s lowest weekly average never fell to less than 40 percent.
The figure is even less — just 34 percent — in Gallup’s shorter, three-day average, which includes more recent interviews, but can also involve more random variation.
Some presidents have seen their positive reviews dip to less than 40 percent, only to recover strongly.
Former US president Bill Clinton, whose rating fell to 37 percent in early June 1993 after policy stumbles, quickly gained ground.
Later that same month, he climbed to 46 percent, and ended his eight years enjoying approval from 66 percent of the nation.
Trump has defied the trends before, but if history is a guide, his numbers do not bode well. Low approval ratings hamper a president’s ability to push an agenda through US Congress and make it more likely the president’s party will lose seats in the midterm elections.
Since Gallup began tracking presidential approval, four US presidents — Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush — spent significant time with less than 40 percent support during their first four years.
Of those who spent at least a few months with less than 40 percent approval in a first term, only one — Truman — recovered enough to win re-election.
Trump’s average approval rating so far: just 40 percent.
That is even lower than the previous average low for a first-term president, 46 percent, set by Carter.
It is unclear whether Trump’s most recent bout with controversy — his response to racially tinged clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia — further harmed his approval ratings.
It could be he is close enough to bottoming out that the latest dustup will have little effect.
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