Donald Trump is beginning his second term with a lower approval rating than Joe Biden in his first two weeks in office, according to a new Gallup poll.
Why It Matters
The Republicans are currently enjoying a wave of popularity nationwide, with Trump having improved on his margins in all but two states in the 2024 election, and the GOP now controlling both the Senate and the House.
However, Trump's current approval rating suggests that could indicate that the GOP's current popularity is anything but guaranteed.
What To Know
According to the latest Gallup poll, conducted between January 21-27, Trump's approval rating currently stands at 47 percent, 10 points below that of Biden's when he first became president. The poll also shows that 48 percent of those polled disapprove of Trump, while only 37 percent disapproved of Biden.
However, while Trump may not be as popular as his predecessor, he is still more popular now than he was at the beginning of his first term in 2017, when his approval rating stood at 45 percent, while 45 percent also disapproved of his job performance.
It comes as Trump's approval ratings have seen historic highs recently. The latest poll from Rasmussen Reports showed that Trump had a net approval of +14, with 54 percent of respondents approving of his job performance, while 40 percent disapproved, eclipsing his previous net approval high of +10, which was recorded twice in 2017.
Meanwhile, Trump's favorability rating has also seen historic highs. It currently stands at -0.6, according to FiveThirtyEight, up from -20 in January 2021. That equates to a 47 percent approval rating for Trump, and comes after he left office in January 2021 with the lowest rating of his presidency, 34 percent, after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Nonetheless, according to the Gallup poll, Trump still has the lowest approval rating of all elected presidents dating back to 1953, and he remains the only elected president with sub-50 percent initial approval ratings.
John Kennedy held the highest inaugural approval rating at 72 percent, followed by Dwight Eisenhower and Barack Obama, who both started with 68 percent. Jimmy Carter received 66 percent, while Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and George W. Bush had ratings ranging from 57 percent to 59 percent.
But most presidents have experienced a "honeymoon period," with strong job approval ratings in the initial months of their presidencies that then fade as time passes. Trump did not enjoy such a traditional honeymoon period in his first term, as the 45 percent of Americans who expressed approval of him in the initial reading in 2017 was not much higher than his 41 percent term average.
What People Are Saying
Andrew David, senior lecturer in social science at Boston University, previously told Newsweek: "The accepted wisdom about modern presidential politics is that, really, a president has something like 12 to 18 months to really get their agenda complete. After that, it's on to the midterms. As a lame duck upon entering office, those midterms might also see the soft start to the 2028 race and a further challenge to Trump's authority, sway and power. As with so much about Trump, this is pretty uncharted territory and a unique set of challenges for a president."
What Happens Next
Whether Trump's current approval rating will be maintained remains to be seen. He is now beginning to enact his agenda, signing more than 100 executive orders on his first two days in office, targeting a wide range of policy areas, including immigration, defense and the military, foreign policy, the environment, and government efficiency.
At the time of the poll, Americans were split on Trump's handling of major national issues, with 40 percent believing his pace was "about right," 37 percent saying it was "too fast," and 14 percent feeling it was "not fast enough." The majority of Republicans (83 percent) supported his approach, while 61 percent of Democrats felt he was moving too quickly. Independents' opinions closely mirrored the national average.
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