President Trump’s approval rating has bounced back since it cratered during the government shutdown, but he still has achieved something unprecedented for a president since the modern polling era began: he has never had a positive approval rating.
The president’s net approval rating peaked in January 2017, when he was sworn into office, when 45 percent approved of him and 47 percent disapproved, according to Gallup . At no point in more than two years since then has the number of people approving of his job performance exceeded those who disapproved of it.
Gallup has data going back to former President Harry S. Truman, and while several presidents have gone through periods in which their approval rating dipped below Trump’s low of 35 percent, all of his predecessors also had periods during which their approval was over 50 percent, meaning that it was net positive.
Other presidents have had wide swings in approval. Former President George W. Bush, for instance peaked at a staggering 90 percent approval after the Sept. 11 attacks only to bottom out at 25 percent in Nov. 2008 after years of war and in the wake of the financial collapse. Trump has never been anywhere near as high or as low. Instead, he has seen his approval rating hold steady within the relatively narrow band of 35 percent to 45 percent.
The implications of this for his re-election prospects are tricky, because Trump won the presidency even as polls showed him to be the most unpopular major party candidate in history. In 2016, he was able to win a critical mass of states over Hillary Clinton, who was the second least popular candidate recorded. As I wrote heading into that election, Trump and Clinton were actually less popular than any losing nominees going back to 1996.
So it’s possible that Democrats will again nominate somebody who is also significantly unpopular and gift Trump re-election. But even if Democrats nominate somebody just as unpopular as, say, John Kerry, it may be enough to beat Trump.
