Trump has the lowest approval of any modern president at the end of his first year

A majority of Americans don’t think too highly of the job Donald Trump is doing as president. It has propelled him to a singular accomplishment: the lowest approval rating of any modern president in December of his first year in office.

Trump’s most recent approval rating, according to Gallup, is at 35 percent. Another CNN poll, which surveyed a random sampling of 1,001 adults from December 14 to 17, put him at 35 percent. They are some of his worst marks yet as president.

No other modern president has come close to such failing grades from the American people at about 330 days in office. His predecessor, Barack Obama, had an approval rating of 50 percent in mid-December 2009. Ronald Reagan previously held the record for lowest approval rating for his first December in office, at 49 percent.

George W. Bush achieved the highest approval rating at 86 percent in December 2001, though he likely benefitted from a post-9/11 boost. His dad, George H.W. Bush, hit a respectable 71 percent, only behind John F. Kennedy, at 77 percent, in December of 1961. Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon had approval ratings in the 50s in the fourth quarter of their first presidential year.

Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford are excluded from this chart, as their first Decembers in office didn’t come after an electoral victory, and didn’t amount to almost a full year as president. (Still, both their approval ratings were above 35 percent, though Ford’s was the lowest — at 42 percent in December 1974 — after taking office in August following Nixon’s resignation.)

Trump entered office in January 2017 with the lowest approval rate of a modern president at 45 percent, and he avoided the goodwill honeymoon normally afforded new presidents. He’s matched that high since, but has not exceeded a 46 percent approval rating since he took office, based on Gallup’s polling.

Trump’s support has eroded over the past year, but it hasn’t, unlike other presidents, dipped or dropped dramatically. Instead, it’s bounced around that 40 percent mark. This likely speaks to the country’s deep partisan polarization: Democrats overwhelmingly disapprove of the president, while Trump’s Republican base has remained mostly loyal. For example, for the week of December 11, 77 percent of Republicans approved of Trump. Only 7 percent of Democrats did. (And 31 percent of independents.)

Trump’s approval rating lives and dies on support among Republicans; he isn’t likely, at this point, to win over too many Democratic fans with his policies or personality. But 89 percent of Republicans approved of Trump after his inauguration. Today, at 77 percent, their rating is down just a little more than 10 percentage points — and that’s reflected in Trump’s overall approval numbers.

The president’s dismal approval rating does have some tangible consequences. As Matthew Glassman, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, explained in Vox earlier this month, “Such numbers sap Trump’s power to leverage popularity into persuasion. They also depress party loyalists concerned about 2018 and embolden potential primary challengers for 2020.”

Trump can take consolation in one thing, at least. Gallup is still polling Hillary Clinton’s favorability — and at 36 percent, it happens to be almost as bleak as Trump’s approval rating.