President Donald Trump was referring to a poll released Thursday by Rasmussen, showing him with a 46 percent approval rating and a 53 percent disapproval rating. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo Trump: My approval rating is the same as Obama’s was in his first year

Lamenting the media’s coverage of his “so-called low approval rating,” President Donald Trump on Friday pointed to a poll that shows him with first-year numbers similar to those of former President Barack Obama, who Trump argued was not hampered by “massive negative Trump coverage & Russia hoax!”

“While the Fake News loves to talk about my so-called low approval rating, @foxandfriends just showed that my rating on Dec. 28, 2017, was approximately the same as President Obama on Dec. 28, 2009, which was 47%...and this despite massive negative Trump coverage & Russia hoax!” Trump wrote on Twitter, citing coverage from the Fox News morning show where he receives almost unflinchingly positive coverage.


The poll to which Trump referred was released Thursday by Rasmussen Reports, showing him with a 46 percent approval rating and a 53 percent disapproval rating. Obama, on Dec. 28 of his first year in office, had almost identical numbers, according to Rasmussen: 47 percent approval, 52 percent disapproval. (In updated results released on Friday, Trump’s approval rating dropped a point, to 45 percent.)

The Rasmussen poll is somewhat of an outlier, though. Of the 12 polls that go into the Real Clear Politics polling average of the president’s approval rating, the 46 percent in Rasmussen’s poll on Thursday was the highest score Trump earned, 3 points better than his next best score.

Moreover, there are methodological reasons why Rasmussen may be friendlier to Trump than other polls. Rasmussen conducts most of its interviews using automated calls to landline telephones. But a majority of Americans, 52 percent, live in households with only cellular telephones, according to a new report this week — with younger Americans far more likely to have abandoned landlines.

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Rasmussen’s presidential tracking survey is conducted among “likely voters,” though the company does not specify in which election the respondents are likely to vote. And Rasmussen weights, or adjusts, its sample to the composition of the electorate in past election years — a controversial practice that some say could miss changes in the electorate in the past year.

Overall, the Real Clear Politics polling average shows Trump with a 39.3 percent approval rating and a 56.2 disapproval rating, historically poor numbers for a president at this point in his first term. Obama, in late December of his first year in office, had an average approval rating of 49.9 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average , and a disapproval rating of 44.5 percent.

