Donald Trump Latest Approval Rating: Popularity Is Highest Since Inauguration

Over half of Americans approved of President Donald Trump’s performance in mid-March. That was the first time since Trump’s inauguration in January that the majority of Americans approved of his job performance — albeit, a narrow majority of 52 percent. About 43 percent of American voters did not approve of Trump’s job performance, according to a Morning Consult/POLITICO poll conducted from March 9 through 13 and published Wednesday morning.

Trump’s job approval rating hovered below 50 percent until Jan. 24, according to the poll. More people disapproved of Trump in March than in January, however; when Trump was inaugurated, his disapproval rating was 37 percent.

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The most recent approval ratings were released after news of the Republicans’ new health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act was mired in arguments from across the political spectrum. But the reason for the inching rise in Trump’s approval rating had more to do with positive economic numbers, Morning Consult reported. Last Friday, a federal jobs report showed that the U.S. added 235,000 jobs in Trump’s full month in office. The stock market has taken note, too; the S&P 500 Index has risen more than 100 points since Trump was sworn into office.

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Still, 54 percent of American voters said the country was headed in the wrong direction, and fewer than half of Americans thought the country was moving on the right track. Forty-six percent responded that they believed the country was headed in a good direction. However, that’s a huge jump from Election Day, when 29 percent of Americans said they felt optimistic about the direction of the country.

Trump’s approval rating is below his predecessor’s. In President Barack Obama’s first few months in office, his approval rating stayed consistently above 60 percent, according to data from Gallup. On March 15, 2009, two months after Obama was inaugurated, 62 percent of Americans approved of his job performance.