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Jan 17, 2021 - Politics & Policy

Trump set to leave office with the lowest approval ratings of his presidency

Maria Arias
Illustration of Donald Trump facing a falling trend line
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

President Trump is heading into his final days in office with the lowest approval ratings of his term, according to a set of new polls.

Why it matters: The polls indicate Trump has seen diminished support, even from his own party, in the wake of the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol, with a majority of Americans favoring efforts in Congress to bar him from holding elected office again.

Driving the news: Trump's final approval rating in a CNN poll out Sunday is 34%, the lowest CNN's polling has recorded during his presidency.

  • An ABC News/Washington Post poll finds Trump leaving office with a 38% approval rating with 60% disapproval, matching his peak disapproval in the poll in August 2018.
  • A survey by Pew Research Center shows even lower approval, at 29%, down nine percentage points from the previous lowest of his presidency.

Zoom in: The Pew poll indicates President Trump has lost favor within his own party, with 60% of Republicans and Republican-leaning people approving of his job performance, down from 77% approved in August. The share of Trump's supporters who described his conduct as poor has doubled over the past two months, from 10% to 20%.

  • CNN's poll indicates Trump's approval rating has dropped 14 points among Republicans since October, but remains largely positive with 80% approving. Only 2% of Democrats approve how Trump is handling the presidency.
  • The ABC News/Washington Post poll indicates 7 in 10 Americans say Trump bears some responsibility for the attack at the Capitol. 56% said they support efforts to bar him from holding elected office again.

The other side: Joe Biden will start his presidency next week with relatively strong performance ratings, with 64% of voters expressing a positive opinion of Biden's conduct since he won the election, the Pew poll indicates.

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Methodology: The new CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS and surveyed 1,003 adults from January 9-14. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percentage points.

The Pew report is drawn from 5,360 panelists who responded from January 8-12. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 5,360 respondents is +/- 1.9 percentage points.

This ABC News/Washington Post poll survey a sample of 1,002 adults from Jan. 10-13. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points. Partisan divisions are 31-25-36%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

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