But while the quality of "strong leadership" was something Trump sought to reinforce throughout his campaign, a new poll finds that the number who see it in him appears to be dropping. Following his stinging defeat on the health care bill, 50 percent of the 1,500 U.S. adults in a poll released Wednesday said Trump was either a "very strong" or "somewhat strong" leader in a question about leadership qualities. That's down from 54 percent last week; in the first results after his inauguration, 61 percent said Trump was a strong leader.

The Economist/YouGov poll asks Americans on a weekly basis whether they view the president as a strong or weak leader. The previous low had been reached two weeks ago, when 51 percent said he was; Republicans have continued to view Trump from a position of strength. Eighty-nine percent said so this week, compared with 92 percent just after he was inaugurated.

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Other polls have yet to update earlier numbers on a similar question. Gallup, for instance, found that 59 percent of Americans viewed Trump as a strong leader in mid-February and 57 percent did last September. It has not reported new results since the health care defeat.

But YouGov's trendline is running in the opposite direction of the image Trump sought to cultivate on the campaign trail. He was the "law and order" candidate who constantly projected a tough guy image, urging on violent supporters at his rallies and claiming "I alone can fix it." He repeatedly claimed Hillary Clinton "doesn't have the stamina" to be president.

At one point in August, he said he wasn't ready to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan, saying "I like Paul, but these are horrible times for our country. We need very strong leadership. We need very, very strong leadership." His running mate talked repeatedly about "broad-shouldered leadership" -- whatever that means -- and, like Trump, called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "stronger president in his country than Barack Obama has been."

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Yet the defeat on his first big effort at passing legislation -- one where he used strong-arm tactics aimed at burnishing his dealmaker reputation -- hardly leaves him in a position of strength. He tried making vague threats, telling members of the far right-wing Freedom Caucus "I'm gonna come after you" if they did not support the bill. He made last-minute ultimatums, pushing for a vote on the bill, only to pull the vote nevertheless.

In the end, however, the bully pulpit didn't have enough bite. It was unable to overcome the defiant right wing of his own party, a quiet revolt from the GOP's moderates and a Democratic caucus that had seen no outreach over a rushed bill the Congressional Budget Office estimated would cause 24 million people to go without health care insurance.

The health care debacle also appears to leave the Trump administration -- which came to power with majorities in the Republican House and Senate -- in a weaker position. The Post reported that the bill's collapse "now imperils the rest of President Trump's ambitious congressional agenda," lacking the savings the health-care bill would have provided to pay for tax cuts and alienating the Democrats he will need to put in place priorities like a $1 trillion infrastructure package.

Meanwhile, some observers wrote that it showed the concerns about Trump's strongman image may not be what they seem. In Politico, the political philosopher Francis Fukuyama wrote that after the health care bill's failure, "far from being a potential tyrant as many Democrats fear, Trump looks like he is heading to the history books as a weak and ineffective president, hobbled by the same checks and balances as his predecessor." (As Oxford University professor Archie Brown wrote in a Post op-ed on the topic back in February, "the self-consciously strong leader is, in a democracy, rarely as strong as he thinks he is.")

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Of course, what those exit poll voters really wanted when they said strong leadership mattered most to them isn't entirely clear. To some, strong leadership could mean being aggressive, brash, and refusing to apologize or back down. To others, strong leadership is a measure of principle, integrity and ultimately, effectiveness. Whatever the case, if YouGov's latest poll is right, more Americans appear to be seeing less of it in Trump.