President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Tuesday following the release of a national poll that showed his approval rating hitting 50 per cent – a number higher than Barack Obama’s at the same point in his first term eight years ago.
The Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll shows half of all Americans say Trump is doing a good job in office, while 49 per cent disagree.
‘Thank you to Rasmussen for the honest polling,’ the president tweeted. ‘Just hit 50%, which is higher than Cheatin’ Obama at the same time in his Administration.’
The president’s strong showing on Monday followed an unenviable week of chaos dominated by constant sword-rattling from alleged former Trump paramour Stormy Daniels, and the dismissal-by-tweet of his Veterans Affairs secretary David Shulkin.
President Donald Trump has hit 50 per cent in Rasmussen Reports’ daily presidential approval tracking poll, and gloated about it on Tuesday (he’s pictured Monday, blowing a whistle to start a race during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll)
The president took a victory lap on Tuesday, a day after the Rasmussen poll was splashed across the top of the Drudge Report for more than eight hours
Barack Obama polled better than 50 per cent 27 per cent of the time while he was commander-in-chief – nearly twice Trump’s rate so far – but his rating on April 2, 2010 was just 46 per cent, and Trump called him ‘Cheatin’ Obama’ on Tuesday
Trump’s 50-50 showing is four points better than Barack Obama’s in the same poll exactly eight years ago, when his first term as president was just as old as Trump’s
Rasmussen’s poll is a three-day rolling average, meaning that Monday’s numbers came from polling last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – while the repercussions from the ’60 Minutes’ interview with porn star Daniels on March 25 were still being felt.
Trump’s numbers in the poll have been in the 50-plus territory on less than 14 per cent of his days in office.
Barack Obama polled better than 50 per cent 27 per cent of the time while he was commander-in-chief.
But Obama’s Rasmussen score eight years ago was 46 per cent – four points behind where Trump currently sits.
Last week began with the sensationalized ’60 Minutes’ interview of Stormy Daniels, a porn actress who claims to have had a months-long affair with Donald Trump a decade ago, but Rasmussen’s poll numbers show Trump rebounded handily
Of the national polls that sampled Trump’s job approval in the past month, the Rasmussen survey is the only one that samples ‘likely voters.’
The others broaden their pools to include ‘registered voters’ – whether or not they plan to cast ballots in the future – and, in some cases, adult ‘Americans’ at large.
An average of polls maintained by Real Clear Politics shows that Trump’s overall rating during the past two weeks is 42.1 per cent.
The Rasmussen poll is the rosiest of the bunch: It puts Trump’s current level of support also above his performance level in the 2016 election, when 46.1 per cent of voters chose him over Hillary Clinton and some minor candidates.
Obama began his presidency at 67 per cent approval in the Rasmussen tracking poll, compared with 56 per cent for Trump.
The Rasmussen poll is clearly an outlier among recent surveys, but it’s also the only recent poll to sample ‘likely’ voters (indicated as ‘LV’ above)
Trump has been fighting off a collection of political headaches, including a special counsel probe into whether his campaign colluded with Russians who aimed to meddle in the 2016 election.
Nearly 20 women have accused him of some level of sexual harassment or abuse, depressing his support among female voters.
The president has also been plagued by far greater turnover of senior staff than his predecessors, most recently losing his staff secretary following domestic violence accusations from two ex-wives.
The instability of Trump’s inner circle hasn’t projected strength: Departures of his initial chief of staff, chief strategist, press secretary, health secretary, veterans affairs secretary, FBI director, chief economic adviser, two national security advisers and a pair of communications directors have all been public-relations train wrecks.
And Omarosa Manigault-Newman’s ouster from the Office of Public Liaison led her back to reality television, where she trashed the administration at every turn.
The Rasmussen Reports national poll was among the few that came closest to accurately predicting the results of the election that vaulted Trump to power.
Unlike other polls that ask questions in live telephone interviews, it relies on push-button phone calls – meaning voters who like Trump’s performance in office aren’t required to say so out loud to another person.
Some political scientists have called the result ‘The Trump Effect,’ a phenomenon that explained how social distaste for the president might depress his numbers in polls that use live operators.