President Donald Trump passed the 100-day mark in office last week. While the West Wing staff tried furiously to spin his executive pronouncements as a demonstration that he has kept his campaign promises, he can so far boast of zero legislative accomplishments of note. Worse, no prospective legislative victories are very far along in the congressional pipeline—both health care reform and a tax overhaul remain, at best, months away from completion. Worst of all, no president since opinion polling began has been as unpopular as Trump in his first 100 days. A raft of polls suggests that voters are deeply concerned about his fitness for the job. As much as Trump needs to put some points up on the legislative scoreboard, he desperately needs to improve these impressions, if he hopes to win a second term.

The Gallup poll regularly finds Trump’s job approval in the low 40s, and occasionally in the high 30s, but so far it has not sunk below that. The president seems to have hit a floor that is built on strong support from self-identified Republicans, about 90 percent of whom approve of the president. This is reminiscent of Obama’s job approval rating for much of his presidency—though the 44th president was polarizing, he was never broadly unpopular because Democrats stuck with him, even as independent voters did not.