Story Highlights
- Down from personal-best 45% the prior week
- Still slightly above term-to-date average of 39%
- All party groups' approval lower
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Donald Trump's job approval rating fell back slightly last week, to 41%, after he tied a personal best of 45% the prior week.
The latest results are based on June 18-24 Gallup polling.
Trump's 45% job approval rating during the week of June 11-17 was likely aided by his historic June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. While the more positive feelings toward Trump coming out of the event would probably have faded in time, that process was likely hastened by the controversy over the administration's immigration policy. As part of a crackdown that treated all illegal U.S.-Mexico border crossings as criminal offenses, children were separated from parents while their parents were held in custody, awaiting hearings.
News about the policy dominated the headlines last week. After Trump and administration officials initially defended the policy of separating children and parents, the president reversed course Wednesday by issuing an executive order to overturn it.
Later in the week, Trump appeared to withdraw his support for GOP-led legislation in the House of Representatives designed to address various immigration issues, by saying in a Twitter post that Republicans should work on other issues.
The 41% job approval rating remains slightly better than his 39% average approval rating for his presidency to date.
Republicans' support for Trump remains high at 87% even after the family separation controversy, but is lower than their 90% approval during the prior two weeks. Republican approval of Trump is now back to the average for his second year in office.
Democrats' 5% job approval -- down from 10% the prior week -- ties the lowest he has had among that group, which also occurred in four other weeks, including one in December and three in January.
Approval among independents was also lower last week, at 38% compared with 42% the prior week.
Bottom Line
The family separation issue is the latest of many major controversies of the Trump presidency. Past controversies, such as the ban on travel to the U.S. from certain Muslim-majority countries, his firing of FBI Director James Comey, and Trump's reaction to the white supremacist-protester clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, brought him negative media attention. While each of these controversies did appear to cause slight and temporary declines in Trump's approval ratings, opinions of the president have been fairly well established from the outset.
Explore President Trump's approval ratings and compare them with those of past presidents in the Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center.
Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted June 18-24, 2018, on the Gallup U.S. Poll, with a random sample of 1,506 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 70% cellphone respondents and 30% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.
Learn more about how the Gallup U.S. Poll works.
