CNN’s John Avlon Delivers Harsh Reality Check on Trump’s End of Year Numbers – Compared to Predecessors

EXCERPT:

AVLON: “So here we are at the end of Donald Trump's second year as president. Let’s look beyond the chaos and the daily headlines and see how he’s doing on basic benchmarks compared to his predecessors, apples to apples. First let’s take a look at approval ratings. According to Gallup, the average presidential approval rating at the end of their second year in office is 56 percent. Trump is at 39 percent. Compare that to 46 percent for Barack Obama, 63 percent for George W. Bush, 41 percent for Clinton, 61 for Bush 41, and 41 percent for Reagan. And here's a little crazy thing. Both JFK and Eisenhower had approval ratings over 70 percent at the end of their second year, levels unheard of in our hyperpartisan era. Note that Obama and Reagan and Clinton were near lows in their entire terms after the bruising midterms, but all went on to easily win re-election. So Trump can get some comfort from that. But none had average approval ratings as low as Trump in their first two years. However, Trump is at the top of the pack when it comes to the economy with a 3.7 percent unemployment rate. That is well below any of his modern predecessors. Unemployment under Obama was 9.3 percent at this point in his term, George W. Bush 6 percent, Clinton 5.5, Bush 41 - 6.3, and Reagan at 10.8, both Carter and Nixon ran around 6 percent. Now, of course Trump inherited an economy that was growing and he kicked it into higher gear, while many of his predecessors inherited an economy in recession. But that combination of a record low approval rating and record low unemployment is ominous, because it suggests that if the economy takes a downturn going forward, Trump’s job approval rating could fall even further.”