Trump's approval ratings never crossed 47% in 41 separate polls during his entire first term: Report
President Donald Trump might have bragged time and again about his performance in office since he took over from Barack Obama on January 20, 2017, but several polls conducted in his entire first term have shown that less than a majority of the Americans actually approved of his job.
The 74-year-old, who defeated Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the US, has not got more than 47 percent approval rating from the country's adults at any point over the entire first term, as many as 41 polls conducted by NBC News/The Wall Street Journal since February 2017 have shown.
According to the final poll numbers, that the two news outlets released on Sunday, November 1, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was leading the incumbent nationally by 10 points (52-42) and by six points across 12 battleground states. Fifty percent of the Americans said they would never consider backing Trump on Election Day, while for Biden the figure was 40 percent.
Biden was leading by 11 points (53-42) over Trump in the NBC News/WSJ poll conducted two weeks ago. Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the latest survey with Republican counterpart Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, said it was the 11th survey they did in 2020 and not much has changed. McInturff though still harbored the hope that Trump could outsmart his opponent on Election Day.
Another Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt told NBC News on Sunday, November 1: “Over the course of his term, there have been 41 NBC/WSJ polls that have measured Donald Trump’s performance as president. In those 41 polls, there was not a single poll that produced a result where more Americans approved than disapproved of his performance as president.”
The president has had a median approval rating of 44 percent throughout his inaugural term but never got the approval of the majority of the Americans in a single poll. His approval rating has moved around within the same none-point range throughout his presidency with the highest rate seen in October 2018 (47 percent) and lowest (38) in October the previous year.
Obama had a higher median approval rate than Trump
Obama, on the other hand, had a median approval rate of 48 percent with the highest approval rate of 60 percent in April 2009 and lowest of 40 percent in July 2014. George W Bush, the last GOP president before Trump, had a 51 percent median approval rating. His highest approval rating was 88 percent which was recorded in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks but it came down to 27 percent when his final term ended in January 2009 — the lowest of all recent presidents.
Trump’s latest approval rate, however, is 45 percent of the American voters, which is up one percent from what it was two weeks ago. Fifty-four percent disapprove of the job he is doing in the White House.
Trump got a good response on the matter of handling the economy. Fifty-five percent of the Americans said they approve of his handling of the economy since he took office but only 40 percent were convinced with the way he dealt with the coronavirus pandemic which has claimed more than 230,000 lives so far. Fifty-seven percent still disapprove of the incumbent’s response to the ongoing health crisis.
Also, the latest NBC/WSJ poll showed that an overwhelming number of Americans — 60 percent — believed the US was heading in the wrong direction while only 31 percent felt the opposite.