Administration

Poll: Trump ends first year with lowest approval of any modern president

President Trump is wrapping up his first year in office with the lowest approval rating of any first-year president in decades, according to an NBC News–Wall Street Journal poll.

The survey pegged Trump’s approval rating at 39 percent, lower than his three immediate predecessors at the same point in their presidencies. Fifty-seven percent of respondents disapprove of the job Trump is doing in office.

That gives Trump the lowest first-year approval rating out of any modern president in the history of the NBC–Wall Street Journal poll.

{mosads}

By comparison, President Obama ended his first year in office with 50 percent approval, President George W. Bush ended his with 82 percent and President Clinton came in at 60 percent, according to the NBC–Wall Street Journal poll.

The poll is based on interviews with 900 U.S. adults and was conducted from Jan. 13 to 17. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

The survey was conducted after reports surfaced last week that Trump asked in a meeting with lawmakers why the U.S. should admit immigrants from “shithole countries,” like Haiti and El Salvador, instead of other countries like Norway.

The numbers in the NBC–Wall Street Journal poll are similar to those in the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris poll which found that 42 percent of voters approve of the job Trump is doing while 58 percent disapprove.

Trump’s approval rating has long lagged. According to the RealClearPolitics presidential approval average, Trump came in at 39.5 percent as of Friday.