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Polling Matters
Trump Job Approval Rating Now at 34%, New Low
Polling Matters

Trump Job Approval Rating Now at 34%, New Low

Chart: data points are described in article

President Donald Trump's job approval rating in Gallup Daily tracking is at 34% for the three-day period from Friday through Sunday -- by one point the lowest of his administration so far.

It is difficult to pinpoint the precise cause of the new low rating, but the changes were apparent on Friday, with his day-by-day ratings near 34% across Saturday and Sunday as well. Trump has consistently been in the news over the past week, including the continued focus on North Korea, even while taking a working vacation at one of his golf properties in New Jersey. The events in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the deaths of a 32-year-old woman and two Virginia State Police officers dominated news coverage on Saturday and Sunday. Trump's prior three-day low reading was 35%, registered March 26-28.

From a broader perspective, Trump's rating of 36% for the week ending Aug. 13 was also by one point his lowest on a weekly basis. The president has talked in recent days about doing well with his "base," but Republicans' latest weekly approval rating of 79% was the lowest from his own partisans so far, dropping from the previous week's 82%. Democrats gave Trump a 7% job approval rating last week, while the reading for independents was at 29%. This is the first time independents' weekly approval rating for Trump has dropped below 30%.

For the three-day period ending Sunday, Republicans' approval of Trump was at 77%.

Trump's highest three-day reading to date has been 46%, recorded most recently on Jan. 23-25, shortly after his Jan. 20 inauguration. He has averaged 40% so far since taking office.

Although he has the lowest rating in Gallup's history for any newly elected president in the summer of his first term in office, Trump's current 34% remains higher than the low points reached by a number of presidents during their administrations. Presidents George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Harry Truman all had job approval ratings lower than 34%, including the all-time low of 22% recorded by Truman in 1952.

Trump's current approval rating is lower than any reading for his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, who reached a three-day low of 38% several times in 2011 and 2014.

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Author(s)

Frank Newport, Ph.D., is a Gallup Senior Scientist. He is the author of Polling Matters: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People and God Is Alive and Well. Twitter: @Frank_Newport


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