Press. voanews.com
Major new polls
in the U.S. say that President-elect Donald Trump is starting his four-year
term in the White House as one of the least popular American chief executives
in decades, a conclusion he immediately dismissed.
The Washington
Post-ABC News Poll said Tuesday, three days ahead of Trump's inauguration
Friday, that he is the most unpopular of at least the last seven newly elected
U.S. presidents. In addition, its survey and one by CNN in recent days showed
American voters have sharply negative views of Trump's handling of his
transition to power since the November election, falling far short of recent
presidents.
"The same
people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing
approval rating polls," Trump said in a Twitter response. "They are
rigged just like before." Both CNN and the
Post-ABC poll pegged Trump's approval rating at 40 percent, about half that for
President Barack Obama when he took office in 2009 and well below Obama's
current 61 percent approval rating as he leaves.
Since 1976, the
seven other newly elected U.S. presidents have started their terms with
favorability ratings ranging from 56 to 79 percent. On the flip side, no recent
president has come close to Trump's 54 percent unfavorable polling at the start
of his presidency.
The negative
views of Trump are partly a reflection of the contentious 2016 election, in
which the president-elect stunned political analysts in his upset win over
Democrat Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state looking to become
the first female U.S. president. Clinton won nearly three million more popular
votes than Trump, but he prevailed where it mattered, in the Electoral College,
the system of state-by-state outcomes the U.S. uses to pick its presidents.
The poll found
that only 44 percent of Americans believe that Trump is qualified to be
president, compared with 52 percent who say he is not. The 52 percent
unqualified figure, however, is the best recorded since he became a candidate a
year and a half ago.
Only 4 in 10 of
those polled approved of Trump's choices for his Cabinet, with many of them
older white men who have collected vast riches over decades of running
businesses and have not previously served in the U.S. government. By contrast,
about 6 in 10 approved of the Cabinet choices made by Obama and former U.S.
Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.
CNN said about
53 percent of those it surveyed say that Trump's statements and actions since
the election have made them less confident that he will be able to handle the
presidency. The television news network said it found Americans split at 48
percent apiece on whether he will be a good or poor president.
CNN found that
61 percent believe Trump will be able to boost employment in economically
challenged parts of the U.S. and about half think he will be able to simplify
the country's labyrinth tax code and protect sensitive electronic information
from being stolen by foreign governments.
It said the
president-elect's approval rating is almost 30 percentage points higher in
rural areas of the country over metropolitan regions, nearly 20 points higher
among men than women and among whites than racial minorities and 13 points
higher among whites without college degrees than those who completed college.
All of the demographic patterns cited in the poll are similar to findings of
voter preferences recorded on Election Day, November 8.
The Post-ABC and
CNN findings were similar to those recorded in a Quinnipiac University poll
released last week. Quinnipiac said its
poll showed Trump's personal characteristics were all rated lower in early
January compared to shortly after the election. The survey said Americans, by a
45-34 percent margin, believe Trump will be a worse president than Obama, with
15 percent saying they think the two will be about the same.
"President-elect
Trump gets points for strength and intelligence," said Quinnipiac pollster
Tim Malloy, "but voters' feelings about his personality traits, empathy,
leadership and level-headedness, are headed south."
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