Most Presidenst-elect generally win, try to unify the country, and try to create the image — as hard as it sometimes is — that they are embracing all Americans. President-elect Donald Trump is not only getting historically low poll ratings (for as long as they’ve done the poll) but he is losing independent voters in droves. Gallup reports:
In Gallup polling conducted two weeks before Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump continues to garner historically low approval for his transition performance, with 51% of Americans disapproving of how he is handling the presidential transition and 44% approving. Last month, the public was split on this question, with 48% approving and 48% disapproving.
NOTE THIS:
Trump’s 48% transition approval rating in December was already the lowest for any presidential transition Gallup has measured, starting with Bill Clinton’s in 1992-1993. Trump’s current rating only further separates him from his predecessors — particularly Barack Obama, who earned 83% approval for his handling of the transition process in January 2009, up from 75% in mid-December 2008.
And then there’s this: GOPers are happy, few Democrats — and his support is plummeting among independents. Bigtime.Republicans’ rating of Trump’s transition has remained positive, with 87% approving in the Jan. 4-8 poll, similar to the 86% recorded last month. Very few Democrats approve, which has also been fairly steady, at 13% this month versus 17% in December. Meanwhile, his transition approval among independents has fallen from 46% to 33%.
The last president before Trump to win the election despite losing the national popular vote was George W. Bush in 2000. However, while Bush’s transition scores were lower than those of both his predecessor (Clinton) and his successor (Obama), his 61% approval rating in mid-January 2001 was nowhere near as low as Trump’s is today.
Clinton received the smallest share of the U.S. popular vote (43%) of any of the past four presidents because a large segment of votes went to third-party candidate Ross Perot. Nevertheless, 62% of Americans approved of his handling of the transition process shortly after the election in November 1992, and by January 1993, his approval had risen to 68%.
On his cabinet choices:
Americans’ reviews of Trump’s Cabinet-level appointments are mixed. In total, 52% say his Cabinet choices are “average” or better, of which 32% rate them as “outstanding” or “above average.” At the same time, 44% consider them “below average” or “poor.”
Looking at both positive and negative ratings, Americans view Trump’s Cabinet as worse than the Cabinets chosen by Obama, Bush and Clinton. However, taking into account just the percentage who consider his Cabinet “above average” or “outstanding,” Trump’s 32% is only modestly lower than the 38% for Bush in January 2001 and matches Clinton’s just before his inauguration in mid-January 1993. Only Obama’s 45% was significantly better.
The chief differentiator for Trump is that many more Americans rate his appointments as “below average” or “poor”: 44% say this about Trump’s Cabinet choices, compared with 13% for Bush’s, 12% for Clinton’s and 10% for Obama’s. The wide spread between positive and negative views of Trump’s Cabinet appointments serves as another example of the highly polarized environment in which Trump will be taking office on Jan. 20.
What does this mean?
Trump will be inaugurated after a bruising and still controversial election and has done little to woo and win over those who didn’t support him in the first place.
And he’s losing the support of independent voters. Very quickly.
Which means: he has little political safety net if his poll numbers begin to impact poll ratings of the Republican Congress. Or will it be the Trumpublican Congress?
Graphic via shuttestock.com
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.