After a series of polls was released showing his approval ratings were historically low for an incoming president, president-elect Donald Trump reacted on Twitter by decrying their accuracy:
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.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2017
A new CNN/ORC poll found Trump’s approval ratings were languishing at 44%, having dropped six points since his election, while 53% of voters disapproved of him; an ABC News/Washington Post poll found his approval number hovering at 40%, with 54% disapproving. The Post reported that Trump’s approval numbers are by far the lowest of any incoming president of the last 40 years.
Meanwhile, a GenForward poll of Americans aged 18 to 30, found 52% of whites, 72% of Latinos, 66% of Asians and 70% of African-Americans think Trump will create a more divisive nation.
Trump used to brag about his poll numbers in the GOP primary, but turned to denigrating them during the general election.
Most of the pre-election polls were within the margin of error.
Although the polls were almost uniformly wrong about Trump winning the election, they were largely correct about the margin of difference in the popular vote; many nationwide polls saw Hillary Clinton winning by roughly three percentage points, but did not look closely enough at exactly where those votes were coming from, as Trump was able to secure victory by narrowly winning crucial states. Not only that, but many if not most of the pre-electionpolls were within the margin of error.
The problem with Trump snapping that the polls are rigged is that there is nothing to rig; there is no election looming on the horizon; there is no tangible consequence for the polling news.