President Donald Trump Approval Rating

President Donald Trump averaged 38.8% job approval during his second quarter in office, which spanned April 20 through July 19. No other president has had a worse second-quarter average. Bill Clinton is the only other president who fell below the majority level of approval at a comparable point in his administration.

Most presidents were still in the honeymoon phase of their presidencies during their second quarter, and enjoyed approval ratings above 60%, with John Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower both above 70%. The average approval rating for elected presidents in their second quarter is 62%, meaning Trump's support is 23 percentage points below the historical norm.

From a broader historical perspective, Trump's second quarter ranks 250th out of the 287 presidential quarters in which Gallup has assessed job approval since 1945. That ranking places Trump's second quarter in the 13th percentile of all presidential quarters, meaning only 12% have been worse -- mostly for Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush near the end of their troubled administrations.

Trump Approval Down Slightly From Weak First-Quarter Ratings

Trump's second-quarter average is down from 41.3% during his first quarter, which was also well below what any other president had in his first quarter.

During the early part of his second quarter in late April and early May, Trump's approval ratings in Gallup Daily tracking mostly stayed in the low 40% range. After the controversial firing of FBI Director James Comey on May 9, Trump's approval rating dropped below 40%. Since then, his approval rating has mainly been in the high 30% range, apart from a 41% average the week of May 22-28 after a major terrorist attack at a Manchester, England, concert venue where American artist Ariana Grande was performing.

In the second quarter, he averaged 85% job approval among Republicans and 8% among Democrats, with independents at 34%. His approval is down in the second quarter among all party groups, including three points among independents, two points among Republicans and one point among Democrats.

The high degree of political polarization in Trump's approval ratings is one major reason why his overall ratings are historically low. Presidential job approval ratings have become increasingly polarized in recent presidential administrations, but the degree of party separation in Trump's ratings reaches new extremes.

The 77-point Republican vs. Democrat gap in Trump's second-quarter ratings compares with a 65-point gap for Obama, 61 points for George W. Bush, and 50 points for Clinton during their respective second quarters. Prior to Clinton, the party gaps averaged 32 points.

Bottom Line

Trump has set new record lows for job approval ratings early in presidential terms, including his initial 45% reading, his first-quarter average of 41.3%, and his second-quarter average of 38.8%. Six months into his presidency, he has yet to register a single job approval rating above 50%, averaging 40% job approval to date.

Trump maintains solid support among his fellow Republicans. However, with fewer than three in 10 Americans identifying as Republican he cannot rely on Republicans alone to have healthy job approval ratings.

So far, independents are less inclined to approve of Trump than they were to approve of prior presidents. All prior presidents averaged 53% job approval among independents, compared with 36% for Trump to date. Carter had the lowest average support among independents, at 42%.

Democratic opposition to Trump appears to be entrenched, and those who disapprove of him largely cite Trump's personal character as the reason for their disapproval. Thus, it may be hard for Democrats to express approval of Trump no matter what he does in office.

Though it may be premature to compare Trump's six-month ratings to other presidents' full-term ratings, Trump is on pace to register the lowest approval rating for a president over a full term, a distinction currently held by Truman and Carter at 45%.

These data are available in Gallup Analytics.

Explore President Trump's approval ratings in depth and compare them with those of past presidents in the Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center.

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted April 20-July 19, 2017, on the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, with a random sample of 52,765 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Gallup: Trump sets new low for second-quarter approval rating

By Noa Yadidi, CNN

President Donald Trump ended the second quarter of his presidency with the lowest average approval rating of any elected president on record since Gallup began tracking that information in the mid-20th century.

Trump's average approval rating for his second quarter in office, 38.8%, is more than five percentage points lower than the next closest president, Bill Clinton at 44%. The two are the only presidents on the list whose average job approval does not rise above 50%.

Although Gallup has been regularly tracking job approval since 1945, presidents who assumed office while another's term was underway -- Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald Ford -- were not included in the second-quarter data released Friday.

Trump's average approval is down from his 41% average approval rating in his first quarter on the job, when he was also the lowest of any other president on record for that time frame.

Trump's approval ratings are also particularly polarized, especially when compared to polarization of approval ratings in the past. In his second quarter, he has garnered only 8% approval from Democrats when compared to 34% of Independents and 85% of Republicans.

According to Gallup, this increased political polarization is one contributing factor as to why Trump's overall ratings are historically low. While polarization is nothing new, it's reaching new heights with Trump when compared to past presidents. In George W. Bush's second quarter, he had a 29% approval rating from Democrats; likewise, in Barack Obama's second quarter, he had a 26% approval from Republicans. Both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had approval ratings in the 40s from Democrats in their second quarters, Gallup said.

This quarter of Trump's presidency ranks 250th out of the 287 presidential quarters of which Gallup has assessed job approval since 1945 -- only about 12% of all presidential quarters since 1945 have been worse than Trump's second quarter.

Meanwhile, Trump's latest Gallup daily approval rating has him at 36% approval to 59% disapproval, one point away from his worst marks on both sides. His previous approval low was 35% on March 28 and his previous disapproval high was 60% on June 12.

The second-quarter poll was conducted by landline and cellphone from April 20 to July 19 with a random sample of 52,765 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 states and Washington, DC. The margin of sampling error is +/- 1 percentage point at 95% confidence.

Six months into his term, President Donald Trump has the lowest approval ratings of any President in the last seven decades at this point in his tenure, a new poll finds.

Just 36% approve of Trump's performance as President, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on July 16. On April 20, as Trump was nearing his 100-day mark, his approval ratings were at 42%.

The last President to have comparable numbers during the first six months of their term with this poll was Gerald Ford, who replaced Richard Nixon following his resignation due to the Watergate scandal in 1974. In February 1975, Ford had a 39% approval ratings. Trump's two immediate predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, both had approval ratings of 59% at this point in their presidencies.

The poll was conducted July 10 through July 13, as the news was breaking that Donald Trump Jr. had met with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 election because he was promised compromising information on Hillary Clinton. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort also attended the meeting. Details about the meeting had been disclosed before the poll was conducted, but subsequent reports revealed Trump Jr.'s motivation for the meeting. Most Americans — 63% — said it was inappropriate for Trump Jr., Kushner and Manafort to attend the meeting, according to the poll.

A majority of Americans, 60%, also think Russia tried to influence the election — up 4% from April. Of those who believe Russia's attempt to intervene, most said Trump benefited from that attempt. The poll's margin of error is 3.5%.

President Trump tweeted about the poll shortly after it was released, claiming it was "just about the most inaccurate poll" during the election.