For Donald Trump, though, the feud with Lewis was particularly ill-advised. Trump struggled to gain support from black Americans over the course of the campaign, generally ineffectively. His "what do you have to lose" pitch wasn't a game-changer and his repeated insistence that the problems face by African-Americans overlapped neatly with the problems of the "inner cities" likely didn't help much either. Going on to describe a civil rights leader who helped shift national consciousness on race as "[a]ll talk, talk, talk - no action or results" probably isn't going to be much more successful.

Then again, Trump may have had more leeway than others to embark on a feud with Lewis, given how poorly the president-elect is already viewed by black Americans.

On measure after measure, Trump fares far worse with black poll respondents than he does overall. Forty percent of Americans view Trump favorably, according to the new Post-ABC poll -- but only 17 percent of black respondents viewed him that way. Nearly three-quarters of black respondents said they viewed Trump unfavorably.

Interestingly, this is actually an improvement for Trump relative to October. That month, only 9 percent of black respondents said they viewed him favorably. (He did better with black voters on Election Day than did Mitt Romney in 2012, according to exit polls, but worse than any recent Republican not running against the first black president.) After the election, Trump's favorability numbers ticked up slightly across the board, including among African-Americans, but he's still viewed strongly unfavorably by more than half of that group.

The numbers for Trump's transition efforts were even worse.

Only 1 in 10 black respondents said they approved of how the president-elect was handling his transition into office. Often, presidents-elect use the period between the election and the inauguration to bolster support among those who supported their opponents. Trump's done little to bridge that gap, which is likely a part of the reason that he's viewed so much worse than other recent politicians in his position. More than two-thirds of black respondents to our new poll strongly disapproved of how Trump has handled the transition period.

Trump is still viewed as broadly unqualified for the position he's about to assume, with more than half of Americans -- and three-quarters of black Americans -- holding that opinion, according to our new poll.

Overall, Americans are skeptical that Trump will be able to improve race relations as president. He fares worse on that question than on his ability to handle the economy, job creation, healthcare or the deficit. That's thanks in part to the same split by race.

More than 4 in 10 black respondents to our poll think Trump will do an "excellent" or "good" job handling the economy, for example. But fewer than 2 in 10 say the same about race relations.

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This is where avoiding fights with respected members of the African-American community might be of help. Regardless of whether or not you feel that Lewis' criticisms of Trump are valid, feuding with the congressman for days on end (it continued into Tuesday on Twitter) seems unlikely to convince black Americans to side with Trump over someone who was at the forefront of the push for civil rights. Self-reflection is not Trump's strong suit, but these low numbers from black Americans might spur Trump to reconsider how he has engaged with the community.