Day 872: The truth about Trump’s approval numbers

Spoiler: they aren’t nearly as good as he claims

Donald Trump loves to cherry-pick data. So it’s no surprise when he touts approval numbers he virtually always uses the very conservative Rasmussen Reports to do so. Even then, he can’t seem to cross the 50% threshold.

In reality, his numbers are far lower than that. Taking a quality, holistic sample from many polls, FiveThirtyEight calculates Trump’s approval rating at around 42%. Notably, his approval ratings have never sniffed 50% and have generally hovered in the same range for years.

Historically, he’s woefully unpopular. In recent history, he’s never been more popular than either of his two predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, at the same point in their presidencies. From a longer term perspective, the only presidents since Harry Truman to be as unpopular as Trump have been Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, and both of those men were above the 50% threshold at multiple points of their first 872 days in office.

Trump really, really wants to be liked. But despite trying to goose the numbers, he just isn’t, to a historic degree.

872 days in, 590 to go

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