Nearing the 100th day of his presidency, President Donald Trump has the lowest approval rating of any new president in modern history, according to two polls, though he’s kept much of the support of those who voted for him.A new NBC News/WSJ poll puts the president’s approval rating at 40 percent, down four points from February — the lowest approval rating at this point in a presidency in the decades-long history of the poll. Obama, by comparison, had a 61 percent approval rating at this point in his presidency, while George W. Bush had a 56 percent approval rating and Clinton had 52 percent.
Advertisement
In a story on a separate poll released Sunday, the Washington Post referred to Trump as “the least popular chief executive in modern times.” Forty-two percent of Americans approve of Trump’s performance as president, while 53 percent disapprove, according to the Washington Post/ABC News poll. This is the “lowest recorded at this stage of a presidency dating to Dwight Eisenhower.”His administration’s fumble on repealing and replacing Obamacare has left Trump without any major accomplishments in his first months in office. Fifty-eight percent say he is not honest or trustworthy; 58 percent also say he’s out of touch, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll.But there’s some good news for Trump: Both polls indicate he still has the loyalty of his base. Still, that base just hasn’t grown at all since the election. Ninety0-six percent of voters who elected him say that voting Trump was the right thing to do, the Washington Post-ABC News poll indicates.Respondents in both polls seem to see Trump as a strong leader whose judgment they don’t trust: 56 percent said Trump doesn’t have the judgment necessary to be president, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll. But even on his top perceived qualities — like firmness in decision-making — the NBC News/WSJ poll finds that he’s slipping. While 59 percent said he was firm and decisive in February, only 50 percent now see him that way.Trump has struggled with low approval ratings since taking office. He assumed the presidency with the lowest approval ratings of any president since modern polling processes were implemented decades ago. When one poll from Rasumussen, which, according to FiveThirtyEight, favors Republicans, indicated that Trump had tipped over the 50 percent approval mark, Trump celebrated by tweeting about it repeatedly. At the time, FiveThirtyEight’s poll average put his approval rating at 41 percent.