Survey: Trump Approval Rating at 40%

President-elect Donald Trump will come into office with only 40% of the public approving of him, according to a new CNN/ORC poll.

That, CNN points out, is 44 points below that of the current White House occupant, Barack Obama.

"Trump's wobbly handling of the presidential transition has left most Americans with growing doubts that the President-elect will be able to handle the job," CNN wrote of the poll.

The public is evenly divided over whether he will be a good or bad President, at 48% apiece.

CNN, which has been hammered by Trump over its reporting on the unsubstantiated dossier alleging ties to Russia and embarassing sexual revelations (CNN only reported Trump had been briefed by U.S. intelligence on the document), also reported that Trump supporter Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) had cited Trump's battle with the media as part of the reason his disapproval rating was so high.

"What's happening here is the public fight that Mr. Trump is having with CNN and other media groups has taken some skin off his poll numbers and it's gone down," he told the news outlet Tuesday.

President-elect Trump was having none of it, tweeting early Tuesday and saying the survey was bogus.

"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," he said.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.