In the past few weeks, President Trump’s approval rating has taken a hit. According to three different polling averages, Trump’s approval rating is as low as it has been — and perhaps lower.
Now, to compound the White House’s woes, a new forecast suggests that Trump’s rating is unlikely to improve in the coming months. If anything, it’s more likely to fall further.
This forecast comes from the “State of the Union” forecasting competition co-sponsored by Good Judgment and this site. One of the questions in the tournament is: “What will Gallup report President Trump’s approval rating to be on 1 August 2017?” Thus far, there have been about 500 forecasts. Here’s the trend:
Initially, forecasters believe that Trump’s approval would most likely stay in the 40 to 50 percent range through the summer — much where it had been since his inauguration. But after the Comey firing, there was a sharp shift in the forecast that preceded the actual shift in Trump’s approval rating.
On average, forecasters now suggest that there is a 63 percent chance that Trump’s approval will be at or under 40 percent on Aug. 1. In other words, the most likely outcome is that Trump’s approval stays about where it is, just under 40 percent in Gallup’s current polling, or falls somewhat lower.
There is a smaller, though not insignificant, chance (26 percent) that Trump’s approval rebounds to between 41 and 50 percent, which would still be a relatively low number at this stage of a president’s first term.
Forecasters place a smaller probability (11 percent) that Trump’s approval rating falls below 30 percent, which has occurred only rarely for presidents in the era of polling.
Notably, the current forecast suggests no chance — literally, a zero percent chance — that Trump’s approval rating increases to above 50 percent by the beginning of August.
Needless to say, the forecast may change if other important events occur. But in our previous forecasting tournament with Good Judgment, a similar forecast of Trump’s 100th-day approval rating proved correct. Even in early February, forecasters believed that Trump’s approval rating was most likely to remain stable, somewhere between +15 and -15 in “net approval” (the percent approving minus the percent disapproving). On April 28, at the end of the 100 days, his net approval rating was -8.
Of course, a poor approval rating early in a president’s first term hardly spells doom. (Ask Bill Clinton.) But for Trump, it suggests the serious challenges that his presidency must overcome.