No honeymoon: One month in, Trump's approval ratings are lagging

WASHINGTON — One month after his inauguration, President Trump has seen his approval ratings sag and the political divisions of his election deepen.

A new president's traditional honeymoon? It's nowhere in sight.

Trump retains overwhelming support among Republicans. In the latest Pew Research Center poll, 84% of Republicans said they approved of the job Trump was doing as president, comparable to the ratings other newly elected presidents have gotten at this point among their own partisans.

Unlike other new presidents, however, Trump hasn't expanded his appeal to include those who didn't help elect him. Just 8% of Democrats approve of the job he's doing, by far the lowest standing for any modern president from the opposition party.

Overall, Trump's approval ratings this month in traditional surveys taken by telephone interviewers range from 39% in the Pew Poll to 48% in a Fox News poll. His disapproval ratings range from 56% in Pew to 47% in Fox.

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The Gallup Poll, which has been measuring newly elected presidents' standings since Dwight Eisenhower, shows Trump in an historically weak position. His approval rating was 42% in the rolling three-day average posted Monday, up from a low of 38% last week. When he was sworn in last month, he was the first modern president to begin his term with less than majority approval, at 45%.

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Trump's standing has sagged as he prepares to deliver his first address to Congress on Feb. 28 — outlining his legislative agenda for the year — and propose his first federal budget. A robust rating can increase a president's political clout while a dismal one can embolden his opponents. And the first year of an administration typically has been the time presidents have had the most success in pushing their most ambitious legislative proposals through Congress.

Trump now faces the familiar demographic divide that defined his election last November, when he won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton:

• Women disapprove of the job he's doing by a wide margin, 63%-33%, in the Pew poll while men are more closely divided: 48% disapprove-45% approve.
• Whites narrowly approve of Trump, 49%-46%, while blacks and Hispanics overwhelmingly disapprove, by 79% and 76% respectively. 
• Voters under 30 disapprove of Trump by 69%-28%. His standing improves as the respondents' age increases. Those 65 and older split 48% approve-47% disapprove.

To compare, in Election Day surveys of voters as they were leaving polling places, Trump won men by 12 percentage points but lost women by eight. Whites backed him by 19 points but he won the support of only 8% of blacks. Latinos supported his opponent Hillary Clinton by a more than 2-1 margin. He carried the support among those 50 and older but lost among younger voters, including Millennials by 18 points.

Most of his modern predecessors in the White House have expanded their support during their first month in office — George H.W. Bush by 12 points, George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter by five points, Ronald Reagan by four points and Richard Nixon by one. Eisenhower's rating declined by one point, Barack Obama's by four and Bill Clinton's by seven.

"He's not expanding at all, and that should give them some pause," says Patrick Griffin, a former Senate aide and White House legislative affairs director for Clinton who now teaches at American University. That said, he notes that Trump has maintained support among his base and says there's time for him to recover, as some other presidents have done.

Clinton's approval rating fell from 58% in the Gallup Poll when he was inaugurated to 51% a month later in the midst of controversies over gays in the military and the withdrawal of two nominees for attorney general. "For every administration, the first 30 days are not their high points," Griffin says. "It's about whether they can go through that learning curve quickly enough that they can correct their behavior and get in sync with their allies."