Since winning the November election, President Donald Trump has seen a rise in his favorability ratings, although he continues to be a polarizing figure across the nation.
Trump has hit the ground running in his second term, with bold moves that include threatening trade wars with allied nations, signing numerous executive orders, initiating deportation flights, and cutting foreign aid expenditures.
Despite the improvement in his personal ratings, Trump still holds the record for the lowest favorability of any newly inaugurated president since polling on this began in 1953.
According to an average of opinion polls compiled by Real Clear Politics, 48.8 percent of voters currently have a favorable view of Trump, while 47.9 percent view him unfavorably.
This results in a net positive rating of 0.9 points as of Tuesday morning.
This figure represents a slight decline from his highest score of 1.2 points at the beginning of the month.
The score is good only because the rolling average has given him an overall unfavorable rating almost nonstop since he entered politics in 2015, sometimes by more than 30 points.
The results reflect the findings of a recent DailyMail.com/J.L. Partners poll that revealed how voters were moving towards Trump and his policies.
President Donald trump signs more executive orders in the Oval Office. He has seen a slight uptick in his favorability rating since winning the election
An average maintained by Real Clear Politics shows how the number of voters who view Trump favorably has overtaken his unfavorables. It gives him his best rating since entering politics, although he remains a highly divisive president
Some 39 percent of respondents, in a poll of 1,009 registered voters just before the inauguration, said they had developed a more positive view of the 78-year-old former property mogul during the past two months.
And his favorability rating moved up by three points.
It was perhaps not surprising, given the scale of his win, when he collected all seven battleground states and became the first Republican since George W. Bush (after 9/11) to claim victory in the popular vote.
‘More voters than is usual in our polarized system do seem to have genuinely rallied around him as he was inaugurated and, going by the popularity of his initial acts— especially deportation of illegal migrants – that’s no surprise,’ said J.L. Partners cofounder James Johnson.
‘Enthusiasm for Trump amongst his own voters was also at fever pitch levels during the election, and that is not going to fray straight away.’
But the honeymoon will not last forever, he added.
‘Part of this will be inevitable as the excitement fades and people’s attention moves elsewhere,’ he said. ‘And challenges – as well as unforced errors – plague the modern presidency.’
A tracker maintained by statistic website FiveThirtyEight showed a similar trend, although he has yet to record a net positive rating in its rolling average.
US President Donald Trump is presented with a jersey by players of the NHL 2024 Stanley Cup Champions Florida Panthers
Voters who said they had a more positive image of Trump listed country, president, and America as part of their reasons for their changing view
Those with a less positive view said he was still Trump and mentioned the word felon
The J.L. Partners survey attempted to unpick why voters may have moved towards Trump.
Voters who said they felt more positive about Trump were asked to give a one-word explanation.
When the results were plotted in a word cloud, the most common answers were: Country, Trump, America, president.
It suggests he may have benefited from a post-election period when he limited his public appearances and social media commentary, and was seen as acting more presidentially and working for the good of the nation.
Those who had a less favorable view cited the countries or territories that he has set his sights on: Canada, Greenland, Panama, and they used the word ‘felon.’
