President Donald Trump ended the second quarter of his presidency with the lowest average approval rating of any elected president on record since Gallup began tracking that information in the mid-20th century.
Trump’s average approval rating for his second quarter in office, 38.8%, is more than five percentage points lower than the next closest president, Bill Clinton at 44%. The two are the only presidents on the list whose average job approval does not rise above 50%.
Although Gallup has been regularly tracking job approval since 1945, presidents who assumed office while another’s term was underway — Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald Ford — were not included in the second-quarter data released Friday.
Trump’s average approval is down from his 41% average approval rating in his first quarter on the job, when he was also the lowest of any other president on record for that time frame.
Trump’s approval ratings are also particularly polarized, especially when compared to polarization of approval ratings in the past. In his second quarter, he has garnered only 8% approval from Democrats when compared to 34% of Independents and 85% of Republicans.
According to Gallup, this increased political polarization is one contributing factor as to why Trump’s overall ratings are historically low. While polarization is nothing new, it’s reaching new heights with Trump when compared to past presidents. In George W. Bush’s second quarter, he had a 29% approval rating from Democrats; likewise, in Barack Obama’s second quarter, he had a 26% approval from Republicans. Both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush had approval ratings in the 40s from Democrats in their second quarters, Gallup said.
This quarter of Trump’s presidency ranks 250th out of the 287 presidential quarters of which Gallup has assessed job approval since 1945 — only about 12% of all presidential quarters since 1945 have been worse than Trump’s second quarter.
Meanwhile, Trump’s latest Gallup daily approval rating has him at 36% approval to 59% disapproval, one point away from his worst marks on both sides. His previous approval low was 35% on March 28 and his previous disapproval high was 60% on June 12.
The second-quarter poll was conducted by landline and cellphone from April 20 to July 19 with a random sample of 52,765 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 states and Washington, DC. The margin of sampling error is +/- 1 percentage point at 95% confidence.
