President Donald Trump has achieved his highest job approval rating in his sixth quarter in the White House, a whopping 41.9 percent between April and July, a new Gallup poll reveals.
The survey Gallup data of 19,414 U.S. adults conducted from April 23 to July 22, also found:
- Trump’s sixth quarter rating of 41.9 percent was up near three points from 39.1 percent in the fifth quarter, and it slightly exceeds his first quarter 41.3 percent average as his personal best.
- Trump's job approval was 40 percent or higher each week during his sixth quarter.
- The sixth quarter included a 45 percent high during the week of his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, matching his first weekly job approval rating after taking office in January 2017.
"The momentum from the summit was not sustained, however, as public approval of Trump slid back to 41 percent the week after it took place," Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones writes.
In addition, the poll found:
- While both Republicans and Democrats criticized Trump for his performance in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, his approval rating appeared unaffected, registering 42 percent the week of July 16-22.
- Republicans' approval of Trump averaged 88 percent during his sixth quarter, compared with 36 percent among independents and 9 percent among Democrats.
- Compared with the nine other post-World War II presidents elected to their first term in office, Trump had lower support than all but Jimmy Carter.
- Several other recent presidents were also, like Trump, below majority level approval at this point, including Ronald Reagan (44.2 percent), Bill Clinton (46.1 percent) and Barack Obama (47.3 percent).
- George W. Bush had the highest sixth-quarter average -- 74.9 percent -- because of the continued rally in support for public leaders after the 9/11 terror attacks.
The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 1 percentage point. Gallup is a global performance-management consulting company based in Washington, D.C.