Trump’s approval rating of 45% is record low for a new president

Jan. 24 (UPI) — President Donald Trump’s approval rating of 45 percent set a new low among the past 10 presidents entering office, according to Gallup polling.

In the Gallup survey of 1,525 adults interviewed Friday through Sunday, 45 percent said they disapprove of the way Trump is handling the job and 10 percent had no opinion. Trump is the first president to come into the office with fewer than half of Americans saying they approve of him.

The approval and disapproval rating are lows for a president since Gallup began surveying after Dwight D. Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1952.

The highest approval ratings were 72 percent for John F. Kennedy, 68 percent for Barack Obama and Eisenhower and 66 percent for Jimmy Carter. On the other end, low ratings were 51 percent for George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, 57 percent for George W. Bush, 58 percent for Bill Clinton and 59 percent for Richard Nixon.

Former presidents also had much lower disapproval ratings than Trump. The previous low was 25 percent for George W. Bush followed by 20 percent for Clinton.

Trump earned a 90 percent approval rating from Republicans and 81 percent disapproval from Democrats. Independents were split — 40 percent approving and 44 percent disapproving.

Trump had a 48 percent approval rating among men and 42 percent among women.

Total nonwhite people gave him a 22 percent approval rating compared with 56 percent for non-Hispanic white people.

The survey has a 3-percent margin of error.

Americans were more hopeful than negative about the next four years after Trump’s inaugural address, however. Gallup, in one day of polling Friday, found that 39 percent of those surveyed were more hopeful compared with 30 percent who said they were less hopeful; 30 percent said what they heard or read about the inauguration made no difference.

A slight majority of 53 percent gave the inaugural address a positive review.

Of those surveyed Jan. 4-8, 44 percent said they approved of Trump’s handling of the transition while 51 percent said they did not approve of it. This is the lowest transition approval rating since Gallup began polling on the question in 1992.