How Low Can He Go? Trump on Course to End Presidency with Lowest Approval Rating Yet

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If the current trend holds, President Donald Trump could leave office with the lowest Gallup approval rating of his presidency.

Trump’s approval rating in the Gallup tracking poll — considered the gold standard — fell four points in the most recent survey. He went from 43 percent approval and 55 percent disapproval as of November 17 to 39 percent approval and 57 percent disapproval in the December poll, which means a similar drop would place him at 35 percent in the final Gallup poll of his presidency.

That would tie his lowest approvals to date, partially because Gallup changed the way they measure approval in the middle of Trump’s term:

The approval ratings reported here are based on Gallup Daily tracking averages for President Donald Trump in 2017 and 2018, and periodic multiday Gallup polls for Trump starting in 2019.

The move away from daily tracking likely spared Trump larger dips that were smoothed out by longer polling periods.

But that dip would not put him even close to some past presidents’ exit ratings. Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush all had lower approval ratings when they left office. In order to reach and cross the Nixon Line, Trump would need to lose 14 points in the poll in a single month.

That’s not impossible given the actions of the past week, or the potential events of the next, but Trump’s durability with his base has withstood a lot. A recent PBS/Marist poll found that while almost all Republicans disapprove of the Capitol insurrection, an overwhelming majority do not blame Trump for the attack.