Trump’s 100-day approval rating at historic low compared to predecessors: ‘He has broken his own record for being the worst’

A raft of new polls to mark Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office show that the president has made history by having the lowest approval rating of any commander-in-chief at this point in their presidency for 80 years.

Polling by ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos, CNN/SSRS, CBS News/YouGov, NBC News, and Fox News all tell a similar story.

They show Trump’s approval rating as having significantly dropped since his inauguration, with ABC reporting a 39 percent approval rate (down six points) to 55 percent disapproval.

CNN has the president with a 41 percent approval rating, up against 59 percent disapproval; both the NBC and CBS polls have him at 45 percent to 55 percent; and Fox News has Trump at 44 percent to 55 percent.

This is the worst showing for a president at the 100-day mark, dating back to at least the end of the Second World War.

CNN’s chief data analyst, Harry Enten, was blunt in his analysis: “These numbers are just horrible, there’s no way to sugarcoat it.”

The previous low achieved at 100 days by the occupant of the Oval Office was also Trump in his first term back in 2017, with ABC’s poll at the time putting him at 42 percent approval and CNN’s at 44 percent. A CBS poll from late April 2017 was actually worse, at 41 percent approval.

As CNN’s Enten notes: “He has broken his own record for being the worst, the American people do not like what they are seeing at this point from Donald John Trump.”

Measuring a president at 100 days dates back to a marker set during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first term in the 1930s at the height of the Great Depression. Presidents often come in promising a lot of action quickly, and campaign promises versus action tend to stay fresh in voters’ minds.

The latest CBS poll examined the tradition and found that most Americans think they can judge this administration in that time frame, with Trump supporters more likely to give the president the benefit of the doubt.

Trump ranks far below other recently elected presidents after 100 days, according to data compiled from Gallup by The American Presidency Project dating back to Eisenhower, who had an approval rating of 73 percent.

Other elected presidents enjoyed solid support from the American public just over three months into their terms: John F. Kennedy 83%; Richard Nixon 62%; Jimmy Carter 63%; Ronald Reagan 68%; George H.W. Bush 56%; Bill Clinton 55%; George W. Bush 62%; Barack Obama 65%; and Joe Biden 57%.

The highly partisan nature of politics already weighs down Trump’s approval, and the latest polls show he is underwater and sinking on almost all major issues.

Public confidence in his ability to deal with economic issues and inflation has been especially hard hit since the rollout of his tariff policy and the subsequent turmoil in the stock market.