Donald Trump is the first president-elect in 28 years to be graded lower than the candidate he beat


"For most voters, the 2016 presidential campaign was one to forget," the Pew Research Center says in presenting quadrennial post-election survey results. There is some decent news for President-elect Donald Trump: Half the 1,254 voters surveyed Nov. 10-14 say they are happy he won the presidential election, while 48 percent are unhappy, and 56 percent say they expect him to have a successful first term (including 97 percent of his supporters; 76 percent of Hillary Clinton supporters say Trump will be unsuccessful). Both those are more or less in line with previous presidents-elect.
But Trump also earned one unwelcome distinction:
Voters' 'grades' for the way Trump conducted himself during the campaign are the lowest for any victorious candidate in 28 years. Just 30 percent of voters give Trump an A or B, 19 percent grade him at C, 15 percent D, while about a third (35 percent) give Trump a failing grade..... For the first time in Pew Research Center post-election surveys, voters give the losing candidate higher grades than the winner. About four-in-10 (43 percent) give Clinton an A or B, which is comparable to the share giving Mitt Romney top letter grades in 2012 (44 percent) and 13 percentage points higher than Trump's (30 percent). [Pew]
Still, Trump's 30 percent passing grade puts him in better standing than most other players in the election — the GOP, Democratic Party, pollsters, the media — everyone, in fact, except Clinton and voters.
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You can read more of Pew's findings — including the odd overlap between people who say they're "hopeful" and "uneasy" about Trump's election — at Pew Research Center.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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