Instead of a net job approval rating of -18 percentage points, Trump’s would be projected to be about +12 percentage points.
Every president since Jimmy Carter had a higher overall net job approval rating than economic approval rating in October of the first term. For example, President Obama averaged a net job approval rating of +11, according to FiveThirtyEight’s approval tracker, and an economic net approval rating of +4. On average, presidents have had a net overall rating 14 points above their economic rating. Trump’s is closer to 20 points below his economic rating.
The sample size of previous presidents here is pretty small at just six, so we shouldn’t read too much into the exact projection of what we’d expect Trump’s overall job approval rating to be in comparison to his economic rating. Additionally, Trump’s background as a businessman may give him a boost in economic job approval ratings that previous presidents didn’t get. Still, it does seem that Trump’s popularity is vastly lower than we would expect given how Americans view him on the economy.
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