The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
Fri, 21 Feb 2025
Rachel Maddow checks in on new polling data about how Americans are feeling about the first few weeks of the second Donald Trump administration and the numbers are not good for Trump.
Chapter 1: Why is Trump facing historically low poll numbers?
The data is in. It's been a month officially as of today for this new presidential term. And what the data says sort of broadly, bottom line, is that the country kind of hates this guy. I shouldn't say hate. It's not the right word. It's not a nice word. Maybe it's can't stand him. Um, or maybe I shouldn't characterize it at all. Uh, we'll just, I'll show you the numbers.
I will say we probably should have seen this coming. I didn't necessarily believe that it was coming this far, this fast, but you know, right out of the gate, Gallup did polling, um, just after the inauguration. They did their first poll on public opinion of Trump in this second term, starting immediately after the inauguration.
Literally, they had their first poll in the field the first full day Trump was in office, the day after he was sworn in. That is the definition of the honeymoon period, right? That's when you are at your high watermark in terms of what people are expecting from you and hoping for from you. But in that first Gallup poll of this presidential term, sort of shockingly, Trump was already underwater.
In his first week in office, more Americans disapproved of him than approved of him. I mean, only by one point, but still, that's unheard of. That's a more than unusual thing in presidential polling.
Gallup, in fact, said at the time that in the 70-plus years they have been doing presidential polling, Donald Trump is the only president for whom his approval ratings were underwater right at the start of his term in office, meaning more people disliked him than liked him. So in that first week Gallup poll, Trump was underwater, 47 approving, 48% disapproving.
So that means he was coming in at minus one. And like I said, that was something we haven't seen with any other president. And to me, actually, it was shocking enough that I didn't think it would stand. I thought that would be sort of an outlier. But now look at this. Gallup just did its follow-up poll, now one month into Trump being back in office, and his numbers have gotten worse.
He's not minus one anymore. Now he's minus six, which makes him, at this point in his term, not only the most disliked and unpopular president in 70-plus years of Gallup polling, Gallup says it actually puts him 15 points below the average polling for presidents. Again, over the last 72 years in which they have been doing this polling.
At this point, in a presidential term, one month in, the average is 15 points higher than where Trump is right now. Nobody has ever started off a presidential term this poorly in the eyes of the American people. I mean, all presidents are above water at this point in their presidencies, right out of the gate. Trump's the only one.
Trump was underwater with the American public from day one, and since then he's been sinking like a cinder block in an ocean trench. I did not know to expect that. And, you know, to be fair, part of the reason I'd expected that that Gallup number might go up and not down is because Gallup's not the only game in town.
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Chapter 2: How did Trump perform in early presidential polling?
By a 13-point margin, the country says, Democrats, please, we would prefer the Democrats to be in charge in the next Congress. In the Washington Post polling, do you support Trump banning transgender people from the military? No, by 11 points. Do you support Trump laying off large numbers of federal workers? No, by 19 points. Do you support Trump shutting down USAID? No, by 21 points.
Do you support Trump pardoning people convicted of violent crimes related to the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021? Do you support Trump's pardon of people convicted of violent crimes on J6? What do you think the number is going to be on that one? The answer obviously is no. The American people do not support that. But the proportion of Americans who say that is 83%.
That was his first major act upon taking office as president. 83% of the public disagrees with it. That's a bad plan in politics. Trump started off this term in office with less of the public approving of him than any other president has ever measured in modern polling. Since then, everything he has done has made the public dislike him even more strongly.
And the things he went out of his way to do first, and the things he crows the loudest about, are the things the American public likes the least. So the stuff that he's decided to make the biggest deal out of, to like hitch his wagon to, to make his presidency all about because he thinks the public loves it, the public hates that stuff the most. And, you know, I mentioned the economy.
I said stick a pin in that. There's something interesting there. Whether or not you think the economy is the most important thing in the country, whether that is what, you know, floats your boat. We have learned the hard way, right, about the distance between what Americans think about the economy and how the economy is actually doing. I understand. I understand.
So I understand there's a lot of feelings about polling about the economy and what that means for politics. But in Donald Trump's history as a political figure, one thing he has been able to bank on is a perception, reality-based or not, that he knows what he's doing when it comes to the economy. This is the whole billionaire vibe, right?
Oh, he seems so rich, so therefore he must be good with money. It's never felt to me like somebody who buys golden toilets is the obvious choice for a good steward of money. But what do I know? That said, look at what's going on with Trump and specifically the perception of whether he knows what he's doing or not on the economy.
I mentioned in the Quinnipiac poll when Americans were asked, do you approve of Trump's handling of the economy? The answer was no. He's minus four on the economy. Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy. CNN specifically asks, has Trump done enough to reduce the price of everyday goods? 62% of the public says no.
Even among Republican-leaning voters, specifically, a majority of Republican-leaning voters say Trump is not doing a good job on bringing prices down. In the Washington Post, do you approve or disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy? Disapprove. He's minus eight. That is the worst number he has had on the economy in that poll since the first year of his first term in office in 2017.
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