Donald Trump will have made history in a number of ways by the time that he leaves office on January 20, many of them nefarious. Like being the only twice impeached U.S. President. His latest triumph is becoming the first President to never have a national approval rating above 50% while in office.
According to Gallup, President Donald Trump will leave the White House with his lowest approval rating of the last four years. Only 34% of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president. And President Trump only achieved a 41% average approval rating throughout his presidency, four points lower than for any of his predecessors in Gallup’s polling era. Trump’s ratings showed a record 81-percentage-point average gap between Republicans and Democrats — 11 points wider than the prior record.
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Donald Trump’s highest approval rating while in office, according to Gallup, was just 49%. This came in early 2020 just after he survived an impeachment attempt by Congress. He would go on to receive only 47% of the popular vote in the presidential election the following November.
Gallup Donald Trump Approval Ratings
His low approval ratings may not be so surprising considering that Mr. Trump was elected with only 44% of the popular vote in 2016 while Hilary Clinton earned 47% of the vote and lost. But President Bill Clinton never earned more than 50% of the popular vote, getting only 43% when first elected in 1992 and 49% when reelected in 1996.
And President Clinton jumped out to a 58% approval in his first year in office and a high of 73% after his own failed impeachment. Bill Clinton left office with an approval rating of 66%, 32 points higher than Donald Trump has today.
Also, his 13% drop in approval between the day of the defeat at the Polls and the day when President Trump leaves office is unusual. George H. W. Bush gained 9 points in his rating in his last two months in office and Gerald Ford went up eight points.
The reason why is obvious. First, the President refused to accept his defeat, continuing to claim election fraud in the albescence of any proof. He then swore to fight on, even after countless reviews and lost court cases, right up to the official counting of the Electoral College results and refused to assist Joe Biden in the presidential transition. This made the President appear to be a sore loser in the eyes of many Americans.
And then the riot and attack on the U.S. Capitol happened on January 6 as Congress voted to certify legally Joe Biden’s election as President of the United States. Trump personally held a rally in Washington that day calling on people to “stop the steal.” He then actually praised his supporters for their carnage and reportedly was happy with their actions while watching the mayhem on television.
