According to several recent polls, President-elect Donald Trump enters the presidency with public opinion more against him than any incoming administration in decades. | Getty Poll: Trump's favorable rating sits at 34 percent

With less than a week to go before he takes office, only 34 percent of Americans view Donald Trump favorably, compared to 46 percent who have a negative opinion of him, according to a Monmouth University poll released Tuesday.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has a 56 percent approval rating, compared to 38 percent of people surveyed who say they disapprove of him.


According to several recent polls, Trump, whose inauguration is Friday, enters the presidency with public opinion more against him than any incoming administration in decades. His numbers now are about the same as they were around the election, when he was similarly unpopular.

The new Monmouth survey, conducted between Jan. 12 and Jan. 15, found that Americans are split on the president-elect’s policies and how he will change the country.

Twenty-six percent of respondents told Monmouth that they expect Trump to help the middle class a lot, and 40 percent say his tenure will help the middle class a little. Twenty-nine percent do not think he will help the middle class at all. White Americans were more likely to say they think Trump will have a positive impact on the middle-class than non-white Americans.

Fifty-five percent of Americans surveyed say they think Trump will help the wealthy a lot, and 54 percent think he will help Wall Street bankers a lot.

The same proportion of those surveyed, 48 percent, said they are concerned with Trump’s attitude toward Russia as unconcerned.

At least one group is doing worse than Trump in the minds of the public, according to Monmouth: Congress, of which just 23 percent of respondents approve. Sixty-six percent of those polled said they disapprove of it.

In another frequently cited metric in describing public opinion, 29 percent of respondents told Monmouth that the country is headed in the right direction, and 65 percent said they believe that it is on the wrong track.

The poll had a sample size of 801 adults and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.