President Donald Trump, with the stroke of a pen, signed an executive order this week to begin the longstanding conservative goal of demolishing the Department of Education.
“Today we take a very historic action that was 45 years in the making,” Trump said at a White House signing ceremony. “It’s about time.”
Trump has been on a tear since returning to the White House two months ago, flexing his political muscles to expand presidential powers as he’s upended longstanding government policy and made major cuts to the federal workforce through a flurry of executive orders and actions.
Trump has signed close to 100 executive orders since his inauguration, according to a count from Fox News, which far surpasses the rate of any recent presidential predecessors during their opening weeks in office.
CHECK OUT WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS NATIONAL POLL SAYS ABOUT PRESIDENT TRUMP
The president touts that “a lot of great things are happening” and that “things are doing very well,” but it’s clear that Americans are divided on the job Trump’s doing so far in his second tour of duty in the White House.
Trump’s approval rating stood at 49% in the latest Fox News national survey, with 51% giving the president a thumbs down in the survey, which was conducted March 14-17.
PROBLEMATIC POLL NUMBERS FOR THE DEMOCRATS
The Fox News poll is the latest national survey to Trump’s approval rating slightly underwater, and it’s also the latest to indicate a massive partisan divide over the president and his agenda.
Ninety-two percent of Republican respondents approved of the president’s performance, while an equal percentage of Democrats gave Trump a big thumbs down. More than six-in-ten independents said they disapproved of the job Trump is doing.
The president’s 49% overall approval rating matches the all-time high for Trump in Fox News polling, which he last reached in April 2020, near the end of his first term in office. And that’s six points higher than where he stood at this point in his first administration (43% approval in March 2017).
Trump’s poll numbers were almost entirely in negative territory in most surveys for the entirety of his first term in office.
HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLING
“The difference is largely a function of the consolidation of the Republican base,” Daron Shaw, who serves as a member of the Fox News Decision Team and is the Republican partner on the Fox News Poll, noted.
“The party’s completely solidified behind him,” added Shaw, a politics professor and chair at the University of Texas, who noted that Trump’s current rock-solid GOP support wasn’t the case at the start of the first term, when he had troubles with some Republicans.
Shaw highlighted that “Democrats were consolidated against Trump in 2017. They’re consolidated against him now.”
Pointing to recent polls indicating Democratic Party favorability at all-time lows, he said “they don’t like their own party very much, but they all agreed that they don’t like Trump.”
While Trump’s poll numbers are superior to where he stood eight years ago, there’s been a bit of slippage.
An average of all the most recent national polls indicates that Trump’s approval ratings are just below water. Trump has seen his numbers edge down slightly since returning to the White House in late January, when an average of his polls indicated the president’s approval rating in the low 50s and his disapproval in the mid-40s.
Contributing to the slide – the economy and jitters that Trump’s tariffs on both foes and friends will spark further inflation, which was a pressing issue that kept former President Biden’s approval ratings well below water for most of his presidency.
The latest Fox News poll as well as other recent surveys point to growing skepticism about Trump’s economic actions and policies.
Shaw says it all comes down to independents.
“If the Republicans are locked down in favor of Trump and Democrats locked down in opposition, it’s just independents,” he said.
Polls indicate independents are currently giving Trump a thumbs down on his handling of the economy.
But Shaw offered that “if inflation comes down a bit, if there’s some growth, those numbers are going to flip. That’s what independents do. They go with the times.”
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