America

New Polls Find Most Americans Sour on Trump's Transition; Trump Cries ‘Rigged'

Outgoing president Barack Obama had much higher approval ratings than Trump in similar polls in the first weeks of 2009

New polling shows that the majority of Americans disapprove of the way President-elect Donald Trump is handling his transition into power, with less than a week to go until his inauguration.

Just 40 percent of respondents approve of how Trump is handling his transition, according to two polls released Tuesday. The CNN/ORC poll found that 52 percent disapprove, while the Washington Post/ABC put that mark at 54 percent. 

In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released late Tuesday, a majority of Americans — 52 percent — say they disapprove of the way Trump has handled his transition and preparations for the presidency, versus just 44 percent who approve, which is down six points from only a month ago.

A poll released last week from Gallup had similar results, finding Trump has a 51 percent disapproval rating and a 44 percent approval rating for how his presidential transition has been handled. 

Trump responded to the polling data Tuesday morning in a tweet, calling them as rigged as he claimed the polls were against him ahead of the presidential election.

"The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before," Trump said.

Most polling ahead of the presidential election gave Democrat Hillary Clinton an advantage of several points. While she lost the election by 72 electoral votes, she won the popular vote by more than two percent. 

Trump's transition approval is falling, according to two of the three polls, which have a margin of sampling error between 3 and 4 percent.

The CNN/ORC poll found slightly more people approved of how he is handling the transition in November, by 46 to 45 percent. Gallup found a toss-up in December, with 48 percent approving and disapproving of how he was handling the transition. 

Outgoing president Barack Obama had much higher approval ratings than Trump in polls asking the same question in the first weeks of 2009: 80 percent or higher in all three polls. 

But there is good news for Trump in the polling data as well. While 54 percent of people had an unfavorable impression of Trump, compared to 40 percent favorable, in the Washington Post/ABC poll, 59 percent think he'll do a good or excellent job creating jobs in America. He's also in the green when asked about how he'll do helping the middle class, handling the budget deficit and dealing with the threat of terrorism.  

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