Donald Trump Approval Rating
Do more Americans approve or disapprove of Donald Trump being the president of the United States? And how does Trump measure up to previous presidents over the same time period?
Trump spends a lot of his time on his personal agenda and making his viewpoints known. Trump often uses up his time on wasteful activities, such posting on “Twitter” or golfing at one of his golf courses. Americans are becoming frustrated with his actions, and this has resulted in the Trump approval rating being the lowest in modern presidential history.
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Trump Approval Rating Chart
In Trump’s first 14 days of being president, there was a greater number of individuals who approved of Trump in office than Americans who disapproved. Since that early two-week period, Trump’s approval rating has been dropping as each day passes. On Trump’s 15th day in office, his disapproval rating was reported as being higher than his approval rating. This divide has been widening ever since.
Below is a table of what Trump’s approval and disapproval ratings were on certain milestone days
| Trump’s Number of Days in Office | Trump’s Approval Rating | Trump’s Disapproval Rating |
| 4 | 45.5% | 41.3% |
| 50 | 44.9% | 49% |
| 100 | 42% | 53% |
| 150 | 38.7% | 55.4% |
| 200 | 36.6% | 57.4% |
In the first 200 days of his administration, Trump’s approval rating has fallen by nine percentage points. In the same period, his disapproval rating has gone up by more than 16%. Looking more in-depth at Trump’s recent popularity ratings, every state has seen a drop, including the ones that voted in favor of Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Presidential Approval Ratings Comparison
Being president of the United States is known as the hardest job in the world. It could be said that Trump is only one individual, and cannot move mountains overnight to improve the lives of Americans. To understand how Trump measures up in his duties as Commander in Chief, however, one of the best indicators is the comparison of his approval ratings to those of past presidents.
As of October 8, Trump’s approval rating was 38%, which was a slight improvement over his rating in August. As the below chart shows, when Trump’s approval rating is compared to that of other presidents in the same time period, his numbers are not great.
(Source: “How unpopular is Donald Trump?,” FiveThirtyEight, October 8, 2016.)
The table above shows that Trump’s approval rating is quite low, compared to that of past presidents. It also shows that Trump being part of the Republican Party cannot be used as an excuse, since Americans have given higher approval ratings to presidents from both parties.
Even when looking at different milestones, such as the 100th or 200th days in office, other presidents had higher approval ratings than Trump. President Trump has remained below the 40% approval rating longer than any other first-year president.
Reasons for Trump’s Low Ratings
The question to ask is, why is Trump’s approval rating falling? Normally, when a president has a low approval rating, it is linked to a sluggish economy or an international crisis. For Trump, the economy is growing, jobs are being created, and stock markets are trading at all-time highs. There also hasn’t been any major foreign relations crisis.
There are many reasons why Trump has a low approval rating, which could be summed up in three words: Twitter, wealthy, and feuds.
Since Trump took the role of president, he has got into personal wars of words with his own administration team. This shows that Trump can’t control his emotions, and will go after anyone in public if he disagrees with someone he has appointed to high-ranking positions. When Trump sees that they don’t do what he wants, he turns on them. These types of internal feuds that are played out in the public sphere result in Americans seeing political turmoil and a lack of strong leadership.
Trump’s plan for America is to benefit wealthy individuals, for the most part. Recently, Trump’s tax plan was leaked; it gives more money back to the rich and takes from middle-and low-income class Americans. Another example is his proposed changes to healthcare policy, which again benefits the wealthy. It seems that Trump is benefiting himself and his high-net-worth friends the most.
Twitter feuds have Trump in the news almost every day for non-presidential actions. For instance, Trump got into a Twitter feud with rapper Snoop Dogg, over whether Obama wiretapped Trump Tower before the election. This looks like child’s play to the American people.
All this creates more uncertainty, because there are dramatic changes that benefit a small group of individuals. The instability of Trump’s actions against the American people and his own administrative team shows a negative picture. His low approval rating reflects what the country thinks of its leader.
