Approval Rating Of Donald Trump Sets Record — Unpopularity Of New President Surges After ‘Muslim Ban’
A new Gallup poll shows that Donald Trump has set a new record with his current job approval rating — becoming the first president since the respected polling agency began surveying presidential approval to have a majority of Americans disapprove of his performance barely a week into his presidency.
The Gallup pollsters interview approximately 1,500 adults per day with direct telephone calls. The poll carries a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Most previous presidents, at some point in their terms, have reached a disapproval rating of more than 50 percent. However, no president has even come close to the speed with which Trump has turned a majority of Americans against him, according to the Gallup findings — a mere eight days.
Trump’s attainment of the point at which more than half of Americans say he is doing a bad job as president directly coincide with his executive order banning travel into the U.S. by passport holders from seven Middle Eastern, predominantly Muslim countries that Trump says are responsible for terrorism.
Days until achieving MAJORITY disapproval from @Gallup
Reagan: 727
Bush I: 1336
Clinton: 573
Bush II: 1205
Obama: 936Trump: 8. days. pic.twitter.com/kv2fy0Qsbp
— Will Jordan (@williamjordann) January 29, 2017
As noted in the above tweet from pollster Will Jordan of the research firm YouGov, the most recent United States president, Barack Obama, took 936 days — more than two-and-a-half years — to top 50 percent job disapproval, Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush needed 1,205 days, or more than three years, while Ronald Reagan took 727 days — three days short of two years — to edge past the 50 percent disapproval mark.
Trump responded to the record disapproval ratings by calling the polls that show him at extraordinary levels of unpopularity with the American public “rigged.”
“The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before,” Trump wrote on his Twitter account.
A Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed Trump at a mere 36 percent approval — compared to 59 percent for his predecessor, Obama, at the same early point of his first term. In the same poll, 50 percent said that Trump will be a worse president than Obama.
However, there is some indication that the negative response to his presidency, highlighted by massive protests on January 21, the day after his inauguration, and again this weekend in response to Trump’s “Muslim ban” executive order, is causing distress for Trump.
His own press secretary, Sean Spicer, said that Trump feels “demoralized” by negative media coverage of his new presidency, and both Trump and Spicer have made falsely inflated claims about the size of the crowd attending Trump’s inauguration.
Trump’s inauguration drew between 300,000 and 600,000 people, according to official estimates.
The following day, mass “Women’s March” protests drew at least 3 million across the country, making January 21 the largest single day of protests in American history.
MORE DONALD TRUMP COVERAGE FROM THE INQUISITR:
New Donald Trump Daily Approval Rating Tracker: See His Dismal Favorable Average Rating As Of Right Now
By Sunday, January 29, the ninth day of the Trump presidential term, the Gallup job disapproval rating for Trump had slipped slightly, back to an even 50 percent. However, only 43 percent said that they affirmatively approved of Trump’s job performance as president.
Other recent polls have not produced such disastrous results for Trump. A Rasmussen poll on January 29 showed Trump with 53 percent approval and 47 percent disapproval. But of the six job approval polls taken since Trump assumed office, only Rasmussen shows him above 50 percent approval, while four of the six show Trump’s disapproval rating higher than his approval number.
[Featured Image by Evan Vucci/AP Images]
