‘President-elect Donald Trump’s popularity has reached a seven-year high and the majority of Americans approve of his handling of the transition process,’ Forbes recently reported. ‘A majority of respondents to a CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday said they believe Trump will do a good job when he returns to the White House next month (54%),’ the story continued, ‘and approve of how he’s handling the transition so far (55%).’
These numbers are in sharp contrast to eight years ago when Donald Trump was ‘President-elect’ the first time. Pew Research Center conducted a national survey from Nov. 30-Dec. 5, 2016 and found that, among the 1,502 adults surveyed then, only ‘40% approved of Trump’s cabinet choices and high-level appointments, while 41% approve of the job he has done so far in explaining his policies and plans for the future.’
It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the level of approval today is sharply higher than eight years ago. The big—and significant—question is: Why?
The easy and perhaps too obvious answer is that President-elect Trump 2.0 is not President Joe Biden, whereas President-elect Trump 1.0 was not President Barack Obama.
Obama left the White House—using Pew numbers again—with a job approval rating just below that of Presidents Reagan’s and Clinton’s when they exited. ‘58% approve of [Obama’s] job performance, while 37% disapprove,’ Pew told us eight years ago.
