President Trump’s Approval Rating Is at a Near-Record Low. Here’s What to Know About the History of Those Numbers

More than a month into a partial government shutdown, Americans are apparently pretty unhappy with how President Donald Trump has been handling things. A new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, released Wednesday, reports that Trump’s approval rating is 34%. That’s down from 42% a month ago, and close to the worst rating he’s received yet.

At such a fraught moment in government, many look to such polls for an indication of how decisions made in Washington are affecting the national mood from coast to coast. Perhaps unsurprisingly, their history started at another moment of great controversy about the role of the president and his office.

In the early 1930s, under FDR, the U.S. had undergone a massive increase in the size of the federal government. But though the Great Depression was still ongoing in late 1935, stocks were up and the nation seemed to have reached a level of calm. That fall, George H. Gallup, founder of the American Institute of Public Opinion, had released his very first set of political opinion polls, and they revealed that 60% of Americans felt New Deal programs were too expensive. And as confidence in the economy ticked up, the popularity of the president behind those radical programs was trending down.