Trump’s Approval Rating Today Is As Bad As It’s Ever Been, May Even Get Worse
Donald Trump’s approval rating today continues to hover at record lows, even as the 45th president continues to implement the very agenda that resonated with voters and got him into the Oval Office.
Looking At The Numbers
The Gallup organization, which has been tracking the approval rating of U.S. presidents going back to Dwight Eisenhower, monitors the president’s approval daily, then compiles the data into a three-day rolling average. That means that on any given day, the approval rating you’re seeing is the average of that day’s polls plus the previous two days’ polls.
As of this writing, that three-day rolling average gives an approval rating (that is, the percentage of respondents who approve of the job Trump is doing) of 42 percent. That ties the Trump administration’s previous record low, set January 28. Further, it’s down from last week, where Trump’s approval rating was 44 percent. Trump’s highest approval rating, 46 percent, was set just a couple of days after the inauguration.
Meanwhile, Trump’s disapproval rating (that is, the percentage of responders who disapprove of the job the president is doing), is at 52 percent, down from a high of 53 percent a few days ago. As with Trump’s approval rating, Trump’s disapproval rating was most favorable to Trump (with only 45 percent of responders not approving of the job the president is doing) in the days following the inauguration.
Moving Too Quickly?
As for the reason for Trump’s low approval ratings, that will depend almost entirely upon whom you ask. However, AOL writer William Steakin believes that it has to do with how quickly Trump is moving on implementing his campaign promisess via executive order.
As the news media has covered extensively, Trump has signed 18 executive orders in his first 12 days in office.
By comparison, Barack Obama had signed 19 executive orders in his first 12 days in office — one more than Trump — yet only had disapproval ratings in the 20 percent range.
Nevertheless, Steakin believes that Americans are weary of how quickly Trump is moving on implementing his campaign agenda. Further, at least two of Trump’s executive orders — the Muslim travel ban and the Mexico border wall — were not only met with intense public backlash but appear to be in danger now that the regular processes of governance have taken over.
In the case of the proposed border wall, it appears that Congress isn’t as eager to proceed with the proposed $14 billion border wall, and Republicans have raised doubts about providing funding for it, according to The Week. And in the case of the travel ban on Muslims from certain nations, Federal Judge James Robart issued a temporary stay of Trump’s order, effectively nullifying the order until the matter can be fully settled in the courts, according to The New York Post.
Robart’s decision caused Trump to go into an angry Twitter tirade in which he called Robart a “so-called judge” and vowed that the order will be overturned.
The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017
The Takeaway
By some measures, Trump’s already-bad approval ratings are only going to get worse. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Dan Cassino speculates that the deep divide between Americans who support Trump and Americans who oppose him means that Trump is unlikely to ever get decent approval numbers.
“Any efforts Trump may take to increase his approval ratings are further hampered by the increasing partisan divide in American politics… In essence, the only way Trump can increase his approval is by appealing to independents and Democrats, something he has shown little interest in doing thus far.”
Do you believe there is anything Donald Trump can do to improve his approval ratings?
[Featured Image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
