With just four days left until Donald Trump takes the oath of office, the president-elect's favorable rating remains stubbornly — and historically — low. A new Gallup poll finds Trump with a 40 percent favorable rating, or roughly half of Obama's 78 percent rating leading up to his 2009 inauguration. Trump holds the distinction of being the only incoming president, of the most recent four, whose unfavorable score is higher than his favorable score. Fifty-five percent of respondents have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared to just 18 percent of Obama in 2009.
But it's not all bad. Gallup reports that Trump's favorable rating is at least slightly higher than it was during the presidential campaign, when it stayed put at 38 percent. And 82 percent of Republicans say they are in Trump's corner. But that's notably lower than George W. Bush's soaring 97 percent favorable rating among Republicans back in 2001.
"The president-elect's general unpopularity is an unprecedented hurdle, whose impact on his ability to govern remains to be seen," Gallup reports. "As he takes office, Trump also faces much greater political polarization than his successors, even though all recent presidents have faced fairly stiff opposition from non-supporters once in office."
This new poll was conducted Jan. 4-8 among 1,032 adults. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.