US presidents ranked by approval ratings when they left office

Only two weeks out from the midterm elections, President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have reached their lowest point during his second term.

The latest poll conducted by The New York Times in partnership with Siena University shows that only 34% of registered voters approve of Trump’s handling of the job, while 60% disapprove.

The American Research Group, a different New Hampshire-based pollster, asked the same question and found that 29% of respondents approved of Trump’s job performance during a similar polling period, while 67% disapproved.

The poll also found that only 27% of surveyed Americans approve of the president’s handling of the economy.

These new polls stand against a changing polling landscape.

For nearly 90 years, the Gallup presidential approval polls measured Americans’ public opinion on the president’s job performance, but now, they’re a thing of the past.

In February, Gallup, the analytics and polling company that pioneered presidential approval ratings, confirmed they were ending the practice, which, since the 1930s, had asked Americans: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way [the current president] is handling his job as president?” In Gallup’s latest poll, conducted in early December 2025, 36% of respondents said they approved of Trump’s performance, and 59% of respondents said they disapproved of his handling of the presidency.

The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, compiled the final Gallup ratings for each presidential term over the past 70 years — from Harry Truman to Joe Biden — and indicated how popular each leader was when they left the Oval Office.

See how the last 13 US presidents ranked in their end-of-term polling, from the lowest to the highest final approval ratings.