After 300 Days, Donald Trump Sees No Accomplishments And Dwindling Job Approval

Donald Trump has been President 300 days and the record reveals no real accomplishments and increased dissatisfaction with the job he's doing.

Trump Sad Face

As I noted earlier on Twitter, today marks Donald Trump’s 300th day in office, and while this is not treated as a significant albeit artificial milestone in quite the same way as the so-called “first 100 days,” it does provide us with an opportunity to review exactly what we’ve seen from the Trump Administration so far and what that might mean for the rest of his first term. Not surprisingly, the verdict is not very good at all. With the exception of a handful of bills that have repealed regulations enacted by the Obama Administration, the Administration cannot point to any significant legislative gains over the past 300 days. An effort to ‘repeal and replace’ the Affordable Care Act ended in September after the Senate failed to pass the final bill that was before it in that regard, although it is now trying to resurrect that effort as part of the ongoing tax reform effort. On the Executive Branch action side, Trump’s efforts to ban travel from Muslim nations, along with efforts to punish so-called ‘sanctuary cities.’ have been blocked by the courts. In the foreign policy arena, the Administration seems to be doing very little but creating chaos and doubt among American allies. The only success that can be pointed to is the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, and that is largely attributable to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. But for that move, Trump wouldn’t even have that accomplishment to point to today, or he would have had to find a nominee who would have been acceptable to enough Democrats to get to sixty votes in the Senate.

In addition to this lack of accomplishment, the past 300 days have shown the rather remarkable phenomenon of a newly elected President who is at unpopularity levels that typically aren’t seen absent a major economic downturn, and which typically don’t manifest themselves until the end of a President’s term in office. Since taking office, Trump has been upside down in his job approval, with disapproval far outpacing approval across the group with nearly all relevant demographic groups with the exception of self-identified Republicans. Polling has also shown that the Amerian public as a whole continues to give the President failing grades when it comes to leadership and trustworthiness and his favorability numbers have generally stayed as negative as they were when he was running for President.

If a new Quinnipiac University poll. is any indication, things are only likely to get worse:

Only four in 10 registered voters believe President Donald Trump is fit for office, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday.

The 40 percent mark is a new low for respondents to the Quinnipiac survey, which asked the same question in September and October. Fifty-seven percent of respondents to the latest poll said Trump is not fit for the office he holds.

While 86 percent of self-identified Republicans said Trump is fit to serve, an overwhelming 93 percent of Democrats said the opposite. And nearly 60 percent of independents agreed with Democrats who said Trump is not fit to serve as president.

Ninety-three percent of people who identify as black and 70 percent of people who identify as Hispanic said Trump is not fit to serve. White voters, however, were largely split on the question of Trump’s fitness for office: 49 percent said he is fit; 48 percent said he isn’t fit.

Trump’s approval rating has slightly fallen to 35 percent, nearing the lowest point of his presidency — 33 percent in August. Nearly six in 10 respondents said they disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president.

Eighty percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s job as president, while 91 percent of Democrats and 63 percent of independents disapprove. Ninety-one percent of black, 70 percent of Hispanic and 50 percent of white voters, respectively, disapprove of Trump’s job as president.

And a majority of registered voters said Trump is not honest (58 percent), does not have good leadership skills (59 percent) or care about average Americans (59 percent), is not level headed (65 percent) and does not share their values (62 percent).

Looking at the poll averages, we see that Trump’s numbers are similarly bad across the board. In the RealClearPolitics average, Trump’s overall average job approval stands at 38.1% and disapproval stands at 56.6%. On the economy, where Trump’s numbers had actually been positive for most of the year thanks to a relatively healthy economy, the President’s job approval on the economy alone stands at 44.9% approve and 45.1% disapprove. On foreign policy, meanwhile, it stands at 37.1% approve and 56.2% disapprove. At Pollster, the numbers aren’t much better, with Trump’s approval standing at 38.9% and his disapproval standing at 55.0%. As has been the case since the start of the year, the President gets overwhelmingly negative reviews from self-identified Democrats and overwhelmingly positive reviews from self-identified Republicans. Among independents, the numbers remain worse than they do for the American public as a whole, with 34.8% approving of the job the President is doing and 55.8% disapproving. Finally, FiveThirtyEight’s job approval index, which is weighted to account for pollster accuracy and other factors, puts Trump’s job approval at 38.1% and his disapproval at 55.7%.

As the RealClearPolitics chart shows, the trend over the past 300 days has been overwhelmingly negative and only shows signs of staying that way, or possibly getting worse:

Trump Job Approval RCP 111517

So, as we stand here less just over two months from the first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, we see an Administration that has accomplished next to nothing led by a President who is historically unpopular, who is on the record lying at what appears to be a record-breaking pace, and who seems to spend most of his time watching cable news and tweeting. Meanwhile, the world looks at the United States as an increasingly unreliable partner in both the diplomatic and economic respects, and worldwide public opinion about the nation is down significantly from where it was before President Trump came into office. Yes, it’s true that the economy here at home has been growing, but for the most part, that rate of growth is consistent with where it was in the years before Trump entered office and job creation is actually averaging slightly below where it was for the final three years of the Obama Administration. Given that, Trump’s first 300 days in office don’t seem to be any more successful than his first 100 days, and by all indications, nothing is likely to change for the better in the immediate future.

FILED UNDER: Public Opinion Polls, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Franklin says:

    Just wait ’til the stock market bubble collapses.

  2. CSK says:

    He’s tweeting triumphantly about the fact that a recent Rasmussen poll gave him a big 46% approval rating.

  3. Mister Bluster says:

    Hannity is waffling on Roy Boy Moore.
    Drudge and Bannon are poking each other with sticks.
    Trump seems to think that the Citizens slaughtered by a gun toter in California Monday are in Texas.

    Another day in Paradise!

  4. Kylopod says:

    @Mister Bluster:

    Hannity is waffling on Roy Boy Moore.

    Hannity is the single biggest hack in the conservative media world (and that’s saying a lot). He just rides with the wind, like that ad used against John Kerry in 2004.

  5. Gustopher says:

    If I got so little done at my job, I would get fired.

  6. Gromitt Gunn says:

    “After 300 Days, Donald Trump Sees No Accomplishments…”

    Thank goodness.

  7. gVOR08 says:

    The Guardian has a long article about the origin of the Steele Dossier. Balloon Juice has a link and summary. As suspected, it was originally contracted by a wealthy Jeb backer. While a Clinton linked law firm picked it up on Clinton’s behalf, the claim that the Dossier represents collusion with Russia by Clinton is ridiculous. The FBI investigation was initiated in response to intercepts and input from foreign services, not the Dossier. Comey doesn’t come off looking very good.

    But the electronic intelligence suggested Steele was right. According to one account, the US agencies looked as if they were asleep. “‘Wake up! There’s something not right here!’ – the BND [German intelligence], the Dutch, the French and SIS were all saying this,” one Washington-based source told me.

    Steele had stumbled upon a well-advanced conspiracy that went beyond anything he had discovered with Litvinenko or Fifa. It was the boldest plot yet. It involved the Kremlin and Trump. Their relationship, Steele’s sources claimed, went back a long way. For at least the past five years, Russian intelligence had been secretly cultivating Trump.

    Sounds like the pee tape is likely real, and not the only one.
    The Guardian piece is a must read.

  8. alanstorm says:

    You actually believe what you write, don’t you?

    Does your insurance cover mental issues?

    Two words: regulations and courts.

    At least that smirking idiot Obama’s out of office, and the self-absorbed, incompetent harridan will never be president.

  9. Teve tory says:

    My conservative but intelligent boss today, seeing a photo of steve mnuchin: “lookit this fucking tool. He probly thinks his trophy wife loves him. He’ll probly go to jail like manafort and flynn. Buncha dipshits.

    Re flynn: “you’re gonna get millions of dollars to fucking kidnap a dude and deliver him to Turkey? He’s going to prison Soon.”

  10. Kylopod says:

    @alanstorm:

    Two words: regulations and courts.

    Both of those points were covered in the post you claim to be responding to:

    “With the exception of a handful of bills that have repealed regulations enacted by the Obama Administration, the Administration cannot point to any significant legislative gains over the past 300 days…. The only success that can be pointed to is the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.”

    In other words, it’s clear you didn’t even read Doug’s post. You just read the title and then rushed to scrawl a few talking points you picked up from Fox or Breitbart.

    In any case, what you’re praising Trump for is the absolute bare minimum of what we would reasonably expect a Republican president with a Republican Congress to be able to accomplish. I can understand a Republican voter thinking that’s preferable to a Democrat in the White House–but it’s not anything to boast about. Most if not all of Trump’s central promises on the campaign trail are dead or stalled, and there’s no reason to believe they’ll be suddenly revived as the midterms get closer, let alone after the midterms, where all the indications suggest the GOP is going to take a beating, just as they did in Virginia last week.

    I’ve made this analogy before, but you Trump cultists remind me of some of the hardcore Star Wars fans when The Phantom Menace came out. The movie was a big disappointment, but the people who stood in line for hours or days to get tickets for advance screenings weren’t ready to admit it. So they’d say stuff like “Liam Neeson swinging a light saber is worth the price of admission alone.” I was really hearing arguments like that. They seemed to know deep down the film didn’t live up to expectations, but they twisted themselves into pretzels to come up with rationalizations, and they did it largely by pretending their expectations were never that high to begin with and that the film had to do relatively little to meet its target.

    That’s what Trumpists essentially are: pathetic fanboys too devoted to their object of worship to admit defeat.

  11. Yank says:

    Funny thing is Gorsuch is more about McConnell then it is about Trump. And as for regulations, who cares? The next Democratic president will just bring them back with their EOs.

    The truth is for Trumpers and Trump is that Trump is likely going to end up being an inconsequential president, a footnote in terms of legislative achievement. History isn’t going to fare well for him, especially in comparison to Obama’s legislative record.

  12. JKB says:

    @Yank: Trump is likely going to end up being an inconsequential president, a footnote in terms of legislative achievement.

    And yet, efforts are going into full swing, well quixotic swipe, to put Pence in the Oval Office. Would Pence be so “unproductive”?

    I am quite amazed at the stark difference in how Trump’s accomplishments are being viewed by the sides. No matter, barring treason, there is no chance of Trump being removed for 15-18 months even if the Democrat have a land office showing next November.

  13. Yank says:

    And yet, efforts are going into full swing, well quixotic swipe, to put Pence in the Oval Office. Would Pence be so “unproductive”?

    People want Pence in the WH because he isn’t insane, not because they fear Trump’s legislative brilliance.

  14. Gustopher says:

    @JKB: lots of ways Trump could leave the Oval Office early — heart attack on the toilet is my favorite.

    He’s a very old man, overweight and flabby, and he doesn’t eat well or exercise. I’d like him to live long enough to know what a failure he is, and how history will view him, but a heart attack on the toilet seems just as likely.

    (Ok, my favorite way of removing him from the Oval Office involves him going to a petting zoo and getting eaten by a sheep, but that seems very unlikely)

  15. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @JKB:

    No matter, barring treason, there is no chance of Trump being removed for 15-18 months even if the Democrat have a land office showing next November.

    I certainly hope not. This clown is ripping the GOP – party AND base – apart into warring camps and destroying their brand better than we could ever have hoped to accomplish. We’re on the verge of Alabama – mother fricking Bible Belt racist backwards ass ALABAMA – sending a Democrat to the US Senate. So thanks for that. We couldn’t have gotten here without you.

    Speaking frankly, this clown of a president is – politically speaking – the best thing to happen for Democrats in 20 years. You elected the death knell of the Republican Party. Congrats 😀

  16. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Kylopod:

    That’s what Trumpists essentially are: pathetic fanboys too devoted to their object of worship to admit defeat

    It was (and is) the largest fit of pique the world has ever seen.

    Soon to be followed (for his supporters) by the biggest hangover in recorded history.

  17. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @alanstorm:

    Two more words:

    Midterm elections

    Have a nice day 😀

  18. Console says:

    @JKB:

    What makes you think Pence survives? In a world where Trump can be impeached, Pence’ll be a lame duck boxed in by a “what did he know and when did he know it” congressional investigation involving Mike Flynn. Pence has much more exposure to that than Trump does because Pence was on the transition team. And there is ample evidence that the Trumpies were warned about Flynn before they hired him.

  19. SC_Birdflyte says:

    If Donald Trump were being investigated for the kind of clearance investigation I underwent in 1989 (and twice more thereafter), he wouldn’t get a clearance for anything other than low-level information. Yet here he is, with his hands on the levers of power.

  20. grumpy realist says:

    @Mister Bluster: Two more accusers have come forward.

    Drip drip drip….

  21. grumpy realist says:

    @HarvardLaw92: Same thing is going to happen with the U.K. and the Brexiteers.

    At least we can vote Trump out the next time around. The U.K. is stuck with their fit of pique.

  22. Franklin says:

    “After 300 Days, Donald Trump Sees No Accomplishments”

    Oh, c’mon Doug. He just kept three stupid basketball players out of the gulag!

    /and I emphasize the word stupid

  23. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @HarvardLaw92: This, times 1,000.

  24. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @Kylopod:
    I hate to agree with a low-information sycophant like
    @alanstorm:
    but he’s not wrong.
    Make no bones about it…President Bone Spurs is incompetent…but rank incompetence can cause a lot of damage left unchecked. With a supine Congress this Executive is completely unchecked.
    Cheeto-Dick has managed to fvck up a lot of stuff outside the legislative process, particularly for women, the LGBT community, minorities, the environment, the economy, education, etc.
    Of course it’s all repairable. But it’s far easier to throw a wrench into the works than to fix the aftermath.
    Just repairing the damage to health care, done completely outside the legislative process, will take years.
    One thing that is also going to totally fvck this country up for years is all the unqualified and nut-case judges they are getting thru, including but certainly not limited to Gorsuch.
    Then there is the damage he is doing on an hourly basis to our standing in the world. Everyone outside this country is laughing at us. And leaders like Putin and Xi Jinping are playing the Comb-Over like a piano.
    We are being moved back decades in many areas. It’s really not pretty.

  25. al-Ameda says:

    Unfortunately, a lack of legislative accomplishments notwithstanding, I think Trump has been very successful. He’s promoting the radical Republican agenda, and her get’s none of the blame for perceived failures in advancing the Republican agenda.

    There’s a lot there: Mitch McConnell gave him the opportunity to nominate a very conservative ideologue who will probably be on the bench for 40 years. Trump has unilaterally abrogated treaties with allies and partners; Trump’s cabinet appointees are rolling back environmental and land use regulations, favoring private schools over public schools; eviscerated our State Department by declining to fill important positions in the State Department; and a lot more anti-governance is sure to come.

  26. Andre Kenji says:

    I don’t see nominating a bunch of unqualified people to the Federal Courts as an accomplishment,.

  27. gVOR08 says:

    @al-Ameda:

    There’s a lot there: Mitch McConnell gave him the opportunity to nominate a very conservative ideologue who will probably be on the bench for 40 years.

    I see that McConnell and company are talking about Luther Strange resigning to trigger a new special election to replace Strange, thereby cancelling the special election to replace Sessions that Strange already lost. (I don’t think they’re serious, just flailing.)

    It seems there has been collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian agents. This was most likely amateurish clowns getting played with little real consequence, but it could turn out that Cambridge Analytica was sharing polling data and analysis to guide Russian ratfwcking.

    This leads to a couple of legal questions.
    Not serious question – If it turns out that Trump’s election was provably illegitimate, Clinton would have won without the Russian interference, can we get a do-over, like the GOPs want in AL, on Gorsuch and Trump’s EOs?

    More serious – collusion with Russian election hacking, and short of that acting to support Russia under threat of blackmail, would meet the vernacular definition of treason. But if we are not at war with Russia, is it possible to meet the legal definition of treason by acting to support Russia.

    Failing that, what would the legal charge be?

  28. Not the IT Dept. says:

    Well, well, well – and only slightly off-topic – looks like another stellar moment for Trump: Crain’s Business List dropped him 37 PLACES in their annual list of private companies:

    http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20171115/REAL_ESTATE/171119940/the-trump-organization-sees-fortunes-fall

    And describes how Trump lied about his company’s revenues – the company is worth only a fraction of what he claims.

  29. JKB says:

    @Gustopher:

    Well, I certainly hope you get the help you need for your fantasies.

    But let’s remember that two months before the election, Hillary Clinton demonstrated she could be taken out by sunlight filtering through the leaves.

  30. JKB says:

    @HarvardLaw92: We’re on the verge of Alabama – mother fricking Bible Belt racist backwards ass ALABAMA – sending a Democrat to the US Senate.

    An interesting sentiment since “– mother fricking Bible Belt racist backwards ass ALABAMA –” has only had 5 Republican Senators since statehood and only for any length of time for a decade after the Civil War and since 1994, thirty years after the Civil Rights act. Democrats have dominated the offices since 1837, well before the end of slavery, and for more than a century during the Jim Crow apartheid imposed by Southern Democrats (prior Jacksonians, a demigod party of one of the founders of the Democratic party dominated).

    So “racist” and “backwards ass” seems more closely associated with the Democratic party, even the post Civil Rights “modern” Democratic party.

  31. Just 'nutha'... says:

    @JKB:

    there is no chance of Trump being removed for 15-18 months even if the Democrat have a land office showing next November.

    Read more: https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/after-300-days-donald-trump-sees-no-accomplishments-and-dwindling-job-approval/#ixzz4ycj8M9tx

    Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. (You have no ability to consider that there may be a different agenda than what you see.)

  32. Mikey says:

    @Andre Kenji:

    I don’t see nominating a bunch of unqualified people to the Federal Courts as an accomplishment,.

    But the Trumpists do, and that’s all the worse for America.

  33. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @grumpy realist:

    So be it. I think I have come to the conclusion that stupidity needs to be painful. It’s the only way that these people will ever learn anything – starting with awareness of how much they don’t know.

  34. Just 'nutha'... says:

    @HarvardLaw92: SHHHHHH!! [Don’t tell him that! He thinks that the reports of near 60% disapproval–virtually everyone who doesn’t vote GOP–are fake news. We should let him keep believing that!]

  35. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @JKB:

    More appropriately termed “Dixiecrats”.

    Same hoods and sheets, different label. They’re your problem now 😀

  36. JKB says:

    This is terrible news for Obama. 95% of the Islamic State has been taken away from the murderers. Their ability to continue genocide is severely curtailed.

    From the man who wrote the book on genocide, recorded last February, released in October (Uncommon Knowledge):

    Peter Robinson: Now, you mentioned a moment ago, we have ISIS cutting off the heads of Christians. There’s a form of genocide taking place in the territory controlled by ISIS, and you say what to President Trump. You say we have a duty to stop that kind of stuff, because why? Because at some level, simply doing the decent thing is an American interest? How do you construct the argument?

    Norman Naimark: I would put it in exactly those terms. I’m a patriot, you know, I like this country, and I owe it a lot, and so do all of us. In some fashion, that doesn’t bother me, but it does not mean that the rest of the world is to be ignored or that serious crises, where we can do some good, should be avoided on all costs, and that when genocidal situations come up, it seems to me, we have the obligation, the moral and the ethical obligation, which is part of what national interest is about. I mean, national interest is not just about oil and money and prosperity. It’s about-

    Peter Robinson: It’s about being able to look at ourselves in the mirror.

    Norman Naimark: Exactly.

    Peter Robinson: Right.

    Norman Naimark: You put that exactly right, being able to look yourselves in the mirror, and, not only that, look at other people around the world in the mirror, not in the mirror, but look them in their eye and say, “We did everything we could to help,” within reason, and within the judgment of good people who are in this administration, and there are some who can decide whether this will be successful or not. We’ve signed on, and the UN has signed on, to a doctrine called Responsibility to Protect. That Responsibility to Protect says clearly that sovereign countries, countries around the world cannot engage in destructive actions against their own people or the rest of the world has to act. We have to act. We have to be part of an entire world. My sense of this is … I can’t tell you, Peter, what I would have done in Syria at specific times along the way. It’s very difficult. It’s a difficult situation. It’s a hard situation. You have to try to figure in how many boys you’re going to lose, and girls, men and women of the Armed Services. What are the costs of intervention? You have to figure that in, and that’s part of thinking about our interests, but it doesn’t mean that you ignore these horrible genocidal situations. Right before I came on your program–just a little footnote–I looked up online contemporary genocidal situations, and people listed 10 of them around the world, and I-

    Peter Robinson: Taking place right now?

    Norman Naimark: Right now, right now. The main one being in Syria. I think that’s at the top, and the Yazidi and Christians, the Yazidi Kurds, who were already cut to pieces and could be cut to pieces more, and Christians. It’s not the same as genocide itself, but it is a situation, which one has to pay attention to and think about and try to help those folks, who are threatened with elimination, as a group of human beings. Individuals you want to help, too, but this is a whole group. The Yazidi Kurds are a part of all of us.

    Peter Robinson: Norman Naimark, author of Genocide: a World History, thank you.

  37. An Interested Party says:

    This is terrible news for Obama.

    How’s that?

  38. Kylopod says:

    @Daryl’s other brother Darryl:

    hate to agree with a low-information sycophant like
    @alanstorm:
    but he’s not wrong.
    Make no bones about it…President Bone Spurs is incompetent…but rank incompetence can cause a lot of damage left unchecked.

    I’ve never doubted that. I wasn’t trying to do a victory lap here. I consider Trump’s election an absolute catastrophe, and yes, no matter what happens it will take us many years to undo the damage.

    That, however, is very different from saying people who supported him have any reason to be satisfied with the results. For example, remember back to early 2016 when J-E-N-O-S was defending Trump’s promise to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, on the grounds that this was merely the starting move in a negotiation in which he’d ultimately secure real concessions from Mexico.

    Of course, Trump no longer talks about making Mexico pay for the wall, and the “wall” itself seems to be stalled indefinitely. Not only does Trump have no idea how to take control of the GOP’s agenda in Congress, his “negotiation” skills were always a farce, and the idea that he ever had the slightest leverage over Mexico was laughable. This is all a surprise to absolutely no one with an IQ in the triple digits, of course. But it does illustrate the massive chasm between Trump’s promises and reality. He’s a failure by his very own standards, even though he’ll never acknowledge it. And even though I doubt he himself ever believed a lot of the BS he spewed on the campaign trail, many of his supporters did–but they’ll endlessly rationalize away their disappointment because to admit Trump is anything less than the demigod he claims would be to shatter their entire worldview.

  39. Yank says:

    @An Interested Party:

    He is trying to say that Trump admin “success” against ISIS is a blackmark against Obama. Of course, the Trump admin is simply so continuing the ISIS plan the Obama admin started last year.

    Just like the economy, Trump is just riding on Obama’s policies.

  40. Frank S says:

    If Trump wasn’t so good at what he does, then sites like this one wouldn’t exist, because your sole purpose is to dissuade voters from voting Trump in 2020, but it’s not gonna work. You commie shitheads have lost it forever. Not only is Trump coming back, but the President after him will keep it all going until we purge this country of every last sour grape. Get use to it, losers, cause your brand of evil had its days and those days are OVER.

  41. HarvardLaw92 says: