As President Donald Trump begins his new term, his approval rating stands at 50 percent, according to a new polling average released by 538.
Based on the 11 polls released since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump's average approval rating starts off at 50 percent, while 43 percent disapprove of the job he is doing as president, News.Az reports, citing ABC News.Trump's initial net approval rating of +7 percentage points is lower than that of any newly elected president since World War II, with one exception: Trump himself during his first term. Trump began his presidency in 2017 with a 44.6 percent approval rating and a 41.4 percent disapproval rating, based on applying our current averaging methodology retroactively. Before that, the record low for initial net approval rating was set by former President George W. Bush in 2001, at +28 points. However, former President Joe Biden started his first term at +22 in 2021.
Trump faces a number of tailwinds and headwinds in his first month in office. His marquee executive order to deport immigrants who are in the country illegally and have been accused of crimes is broadly supported by the American public. And an Associated Press/NORC poll conducted earlier this month found a supermajority of adults support deporting immigrants "who have been convicted of a violent crime" — with higher support for immigrants who are here illegally (83 percent) versus those who are here legally (69 percent). There is also support for reducing the number of immigrants coming into America legally, finishing the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and declaring a national border emergency.
But a number of Trump's early actions also have the potential to spark backlash. Pardoning the people who unlawfully entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and committed acts of violence is decidedly unpopular, for example, with just 21 percent of adults in favor, according to that AP/NORC poll. Withdrawing from international climate agreements is also generally unpopular, according to the same survey. And there's Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship, too; an Ipsos/New York Times poll from Jan. 2-10 found that Americans oppose ending birthright citizenship for children born to immigrants who are here illegally, 55 percent to 41 percent.
Americans are also mostly not confident, according to the same AP/NORC poll, that Trump will be able to bring down the price of goods and services, such as groceries and health care. This is notable, as it's likely the biggest issue that convinced moderates to vote for him in the 2024 election. And there is only middling support for enacting tariffs on imports, with 29 percent in favor of a tax on all goods entering the U.S. — Trump's key economic proposal. Nonpartisan economists argue Trump's new tariffs would cause prices for the average American to rise, not fall. Tariffs would also likely curb the Biden-era rebound in manufacturing and house-building by increasing the cost of goods used in construction.
While Trump's tax cuts are also mostly popular in isolation, the costs that come along with them (Republican legislators in Congress will mandate other programs, such as Medicare or Medicaid, be cut to offset the lost revenue) could be deeply unpopular. The lowest point in Trump's first-term approval, before his ratings cratered after the events of Jan. 6, came after Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act and reduce funding for Medicaid in 2017.
Finally, Trump goes up against an apparent gravitational force that pulls down on approval ratings as time goes on. Presidents tend to enjoy their best net approval ratings at the start of their terms. Then, as policies are passed that shift the effective ideology of the U.S. government away from the ideology of the average voter, and as the president inevitably marginalizes members of his own constituency by focusing his political capital on other policy domains, voters leave the president's side and his approval rating dips. This has been a consistent pattern for the last 80 years, barring events in foreign wars or attacks on the homeland.
But past patterns do not guarantee future results. It is possible that Trump will be viewed more favorably as time goes on. Maybe Americans will reward the president for his handling of the border, and he will end up jettisoning the less popular parts of his policy agenda as he did in 2017. He may also be rewarded for an economy that has largely healed from pandemic-induced inflation and labor-market tightness.
For now, what we know is that Trump starts in a relatively weak position compared to past presidents. The only president he outscores is himself, from 2017. That is not likely to reassure the White House.
