Trump Isn’t the Most Popular President in History
The Claim
President Donald Trump is more popular than any other US president.
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Emerging story
As of November 26, 2020, President Trump has received 73,918,063 votes – more than any other president. Many conservatives celebrated, saying that this large number proves that Trump is the most popular president in history. He still lost the election and the popular vote by several million votes by the most recent tallies, however.
Misbar’s Analysis
This assessment just isn’t true. According to every definition, popularity means overall likability, not total number of votes. This is especially true during the 2020 election, which received the largest voter turnout of all time.
While Trump did receive almost 74 million votes, that doesn’t mean he’s the most popular president in history. According to Gallup, Trump has the lowest average approval rating in history at 41 percent.
JFK has the highest, with an average approval rating of 70 percent followed by Eisenhower at 65 percent. At the time of writing, Trump is also the only president to never have had an approval rating reach above 50 percent. It may be worth noting that a few two-term presidents had worse approval ratings than Trump, but averages taken are the sum of both terms.
