President Trump’s approval rating has plummeted since late February, according to the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, which the president frequently cited during his first three years in office.
As of Wednesday, 42 percent of Americans told Rasmussen that they approved of the job Trump was doing as president, while 57 percent disapproved. On Feb. 25, four days before the first reported U.S. deaths from COVID-19, the poll reported that 52 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s job performance, while 47 percent disapproved. On Wednesday, the nation neared the 100,000th death from the virus.
While 42 percent approval is in line with the overall aggregation of polls tracking Trump’s approval rating, it is notable from Rasmussen, which tends to show more favorable numbers for Republicans and the president. FiveThirtyEight, which averages a large sampling of polls, put Trump’s approval rating at 42.6 percent on Wednesday and his disapproval number at 53.7 percent.
Trump has repeatedly touted the Rasmussen daily tracking poll as representative of American sentiment about his presidency, citing it at least 28 times on Twitter. Last July 17, for instance, he tweeted about the poll before attending a campaign rally in North Carolina at which he attacked Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayana Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
New Poll: The Rasmussen Poll, one of the most accurate in predicting the 2016 Election, has just announced that “Trump” numbers have recently gone up by four points, to 50%. Thank you to the vicious young Socialist Congresswomen. America will never buy your act! #MAGA2020
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 17, 2019
In fact, Trump has tweeted about hitting 50 percent in the Rasmussen poll on nine different occasions.
Working hard, thank you! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/00hoL0to0u
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2019
Last week Trump demanded that Fox News “fire their Fake News Pollster” after the network released a new poll showing him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by 8 points in a general election matchup.
Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll is conducted via automated phone calls and online surveys. While Trump earned his highest approval rating of 59 percent on Jan. 26, 2017, he fell to just 42 percent approval on Jan. 22, 2018. On Wednesday he tied that number, the single lowest approval rating measured by Rasmussen of his presidency.
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