Trump to Leave Office With a Higher Approval Rating Than George W. Bush

Despite more than four years of endless attacks on him and his character, President Trump will leave office with a higher approval rating than the previous Republican president, George W. Bush, had when he left office in 2009.

According to the RealClearPolitics average, Trump will leave office with an approval rating of 40 percent, while George W. Bush left office with an average of 29 percent.

President Trump’s presidency was long overshadowed by the bogus Russian collusion narrative, the partisan impeachment in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the second impeachment. But most of it was defined by record-breaking economic growth and prosperity, even for those left behind during the Obama years. Jobs that Obama said would take a magic wand to bring back to the United States were brought back under Trump. While Obama said we needed to accept a mediocre economy as the new normal, Trump said we could do better and proved that we actually could with conservative tax policy and deregulation.

Despite these and many more accomplishments, the media never let up on him—even going so far as to blame him for the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

This is particularly significant given the post-presidency bump George W. Bush received during the Obama years. Six months into President Trump’s first year in office, George W. Bush’s approval was measured at 59 percent by Gallup, up from the 35 percent they measured for his approval when he left office. Bush’s post-presidency popularity surge was undeniably the result of the turmoil of the Obama years making many look more favorably upon his presidency. The media assault in the aftermath of the assault on the Capitol also heavily contributed to Trump’s final approval ratings.

I think it’s safe to say that Trump will experience a similar post-presidency surge in approval. His resilience in the face of an unparalleled assault by the media, plus the early indications of the coming disaster awaiting us under the Harris-Biden administration, will likely send Trump’s post-presidency approval to the low fifties within 18 months.

I thought the media was hard on George W. Bush, but what he endured was a cakewalk compared to what Trump experienced. So, mark my words: President Trump’s legacy will be just fine.

_____

Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter, Facebook, Parler, Gab, MeWe, Rumble, and CloutHub.