--- title: Donald Trump Approval Rating Lower Than Past Presidents description: Donald Trump's approval rating in the second quarter was lower than any other past president during the same time frame. canonical: https://time.com/4868028/donald-trump-approval-rating/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-21T12:30:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:39:51.446Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump's Approval Rating Is Worse Than Predecessors og:description: According to a new Gallup poll og:url: https://time.com/4868028/donald-trump-approval-rating/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt826f2618cc0f9809/6988d69c97cdff5e836b1b0f/donald-trump-economy-washington.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders Holds Off-Camera Briefing At White House og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump's Approval Rating Is Worse Than Predecessors twitter:description: According to a new Gallup poll twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt826f2618cc0f9809/6988d69c97cdff5e836b1b0f/donald-trump-economy-washington.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump's Approval Rating Is Worse Than Any Other President At This Point > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jul 21, 2017 12:30 PM UTC  U.S. President Donald Trump listens during an announcement regarding a pharmaceutical glass packaging initiative July 20, 2017 at the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump listens during an announcement regarding a pharmaceutical glass packaging initiative July 20, 2017 at the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC. Alex Wong—Getty Images  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jul 21, 2017 12:30 PM UTC President [Donald Trump](http://time.com/4637388/what-donald-trumps-approval-rating-means/)‘s second-quarter job approval rating has fallen below what [any other past president](http://fortune.com/2017/07/20/donald-trump-poll-predecessors-approval-rating/) has gotten during the same time frame. A [new Gallup poll ](http://www.gallup.com/poll/214322/trump-sets-new-low-second-quarter-job-approval.aspx)found that Trump averaged a 38.8% rating between April 20 and July 19\. The average approval rating for that time is 62%. President Obama was at the average during this time period, as was President Nixon. President Clinton is the only president who was below 50% by the second quarter, coming in with a 44% approval rating. Trump’s approval rating isn’t just low compared to the same time period across administrations. His second quarter ranks 250th out of all 287 presidential quarters Gallup has measured since 1945\. But there’s a large partisan gap in the numbers. Just 8% of Democrats approved of Trump’s job performance during the second quarter, but 85% of Republicans did. Approval ratings have become increasingly polarized in recent administrations, but the 77-point gap for Trump is a new record. The Gallup poll is based on telephone interviews of 52,765 adults in the U.S. conducted April 20-July 19, 2017 and has a margin of sampling error of ±1 percentage point. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4868028/donald-trump-approval-rating/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4868028/donald-trump-approval-rating/"},"headline":"President Trump's Approval Rating Is Worse Than Any Other President At This Point","datePublished":"2017-07-21T12:30:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:39:51.446Z","description":"According to a new Gallup poll","url":"https://time.com/4868028/donald-trump-approval-rating/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt826f2618cc0f9809/6988d69c97cdff5e836b1b0f/donald-trump-economy-washington.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt826f2618cc0f9809/6988d69c97cdff5e836b1b0f/donald-trump-economy-washington.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders Holds Off-Camera Briefing At White House","caption":"Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders Holds Off-Camera Briefing At White House","creditText":"Alex Wong—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4868028/donald-trump-approval-rating/","name":"President Trump's Approval Rating Is Worse Than Any Other President At This Point"}}]}] ```