Plunging into undesirably unchartered territory, Trump is setting new records with his dismally low approval ratings, including the lowest mark ever for a president in his first year. In fact, with four months left in the year, Trump has already spent more time under 40 percent than any other first-year president.
At 34 percent, his current approval rating is worse than former President Barack Obamas ever was.
Trumps early descent in the polls defies some longstanding patterns about how Americans view their president. Such plunges are often tied to external forces that the president only partially controls, such as a sluggish economy or an all-consuming international crisis. In Trumps case, the economy is humming and the foreign crises have been kept to a minimum.
Americans also tend to be optimistic about their new leaders, typically cutting them some slack during their early days in office. Not with Trump.
Most presidents begin with a honeymoon period and then go down from that, and Trump had no honeymoon, said Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport.
Trump is now viewed positively by only 37 percent of Americans, according to Gallups most recent weekly estimate. (Obamas lowest weekly average never fell below 40 percent.) Its even lower just 34 percent in Gallups shorter, three-day average, which includes more recent interviews but can also involve more random variation.
Since Gallup began tracking presidential approval, four presidents Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush spent significant time below 40 percent during their first four years. Clintons and Ronald Reagans forays below the 40 percent mark also came during their first terms. But neither stayed there long.
Of those who spent at least a few months below 40 percent approval in a first term, only one Truman recovered enough to win re-election.
Still, several others reached lows at some point in their presidency that are worse than Trumps, including several who dropped below 30 percent.
Truman hit 22 percent in February 1952, during a drawn-out Korean War stalemate and accusations of corruption in his administration. Richard Nixon hit 24 percent at the height of the Watergate scandal just before his resignation in 1974. Carter bottomed out at 28 percent in the summer of 1979, amid that years oil crisis.
Trumps average approval rating so far: Just 40 percent. Thats even lower than the previous average low for a first-term president, 46 percent, set by Carter.
