President-elect Donald Trump blasted 'rigged' opinion polls Tuesday as two different surveys pegged him as the least popular man to take the oath of office in four decades, with a popularity rating just half of what Barack Obama's was eight years ago.

'The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls,' Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. 'They are rigged just like before.'

Trump set out his missive amid blaring headlines about his record-low popularity upon taking office, and negative ratings for his handling of the transition period.

Trump scored an approval rating of just 40 percent in a new CNN / ORC poll. His approval rating was identical in an ABC News / Washington Post poll.

Trump doesn't appear to won over converts through his handling of the transition period.

President-elect Donald Trump is set to enter the White House with just a 40 per cent approval rating, the lowest for an incoming president in decades

IS HE RIGHT ABOUT POLLS BEING RIGGED? Website Zero Hedge highlighted the fact that the polls asked questions of a far larger number of Democrats than Republicans. The ABC poll had 23 per cent of respondents who identified as Republicans to 31 per cent who said they were Democrats. For CNN it was 24 per cent to 32 per cent. Zero Hedge suggested Trump's use of the term 'phony' was correct and 'seemed to sum up today's polls perfectly'. The same issues of questions over sample size dogged polls taken before the election - which predicted entirely the wrong result, and said that Hillary Clinton would win. Pollsters have claimed that the overall results are not affect by the differences in sample as they give less weight to the oversampled group when reaching their conclusions. However polling in recent years has become error-prone, with the 2016 presidential election not the only result pollsters got wrong. The 2014 mid-term elections were called incorrectly, while abroad, a series of elections have been mis-predicted, among them almost all the most recent British votes. Advertisement

Disapproval of his transition handling has jumped to 52 per cent in the CNN poll, an increase of 7 points from November.

Trump's ratings belie the typical bump a newly elected incoming president gets, as Americans typically tire of the current White House occupant and place their hopes on the future.

After his own historic win, Barack Obama came in with an 84 per cent approval rating in the CNN poll. Bill Clinton came in with 67 per cent, and George W. Bush came in with a 61 per cent rating even after his contested election.

Jimmy Carter came in with 78 per cent and George H.W. Bush came in with 65 per cent, the Post noted, while Ronald Reagan entered the White House with 58 per cent approval.

Fifty-three per cent said Trump's handling of the transition made them less confident in his ability to handle the job of president.

Although just 44 per cent in the CNN poll think Trump will be able to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, he gets better numbers on other goals.

Seventy-one per cent think it's at least somewhat likely he'll slap tariffs on goods made in Mexico, 61 per cent say he'll renegotiate NAFTA, and 50 per cent say he'll be able to simplify the tax code – a goal President Obama and many of his predecessors have failed to achieve.

President-elect Trump blasted 'rigged' ratings of his approval after polls conducted for CNN and ABC News and the Washington Post had his positive rating at just 40 per cent

Fifty-three per cent said Trump's handling of the transition made them less confident in his ability to handle the job of president. Trump smiles at the media at the clubhouse of Trump National Golf Club November 20, 2016 in Bedminster, New Jersey

President Obama is leaving office with a favorable rating of 61 percent, according to the Washington Post / ABC poll

After winning an election marred by hacking, Trump will be able to protect sensitive electronic information theft by foreign governments, according to 48 per cent of Americans in the survey.

Trump's disapproval rating in the Washington Post poll has climbed to 54 per cent. Although a 52 per cent majority say he is not qualified to be president, that number is an improvement for Trump in the poll.

President Obama is leaving office with a favorable rating of 61 percent, according to the Washington Post / ABC poll.

Trump's low approval numbers come as up to 40 House Democrats prepare to skip his inauguration, following Trump's spat with Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, who called Trump's election 'illegitimate.'