Trump hits new low with latest 42 percent approval rating
Wrapping up a summer of White House staff shakeups, tense North Korea rhetoric and bolstering on the road, President Trump's latest monthly rating is his worst yet.
According to the latest full-month survey from Rasmussen Reports, Trump's monthly approval rating was his lowest yet in August at 42 percent. Trump's lowest full-month rating before this was his July number of 43 percent, and his high was a 51 percent rating in February.
The new Rasmussen poll also shows that 26 percent of voters strongly approved of Trump's job performance in August, while 47 percent strongly disapproved.
Despite individual daily Gallup poll results that placed Trump's approval rating as low as 34 percent, this less-than-favorable poll result comes after a month during which the 45th president hosted campaign rallies in both Arizona and Ohio, announced his plan on U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and dealt with the deadly after effects of both the violent Charlottesville protests and Hurricane Harvey.
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Following robust messaging surrounding Harvey's unprecedented destruction in Texas, Trump's approval rating continued to suffer anemic levels last week after he appeared in the Lonestar State with Gov. Greg Abbott.
The approval rating hits presidents are seemingly bound to take in the face of natural disasters was evidenced with both Barack Obama and George W. Bush during their White House tenures. For Bush 43, it was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After the Category 3 storm left a reported 1,833 dead and over 200,000 homes damaged along the Gulf Coast, Bush's approval rating dropped to 43.9 percent -- with the American public largely disapproving of the White House's handling of the crippling disaster.
One poll from August did show a favorable review for Trump when it came to his tone on the controversies surrounding Confederate statues and monuments in public spaces throughout the U.S. According to Rasmussen, 50 percent of likely U.S. voters agreed with Trump's tweet that it is "sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments."
With the calendar markings of summer at a close, Trump now enters the fall months with a list of campaign promises he has yet to make good on during his first eight months in office. Tax reform, health care and now the scraping of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration policy -- each of these Trump has signaled Congress must get done, saying of tax reform that Democrats like Sen. Claire McCaskill "must do this" or be voted out of office.
As the legislative process of bargaining and bill writing takes its course, though, Trump's ability to set the tone from the Oval Office on these domestic policy issues critical to his 2016 campaign could make or break his approval ratings in the coming months.
