Which presidents had the largest drops in approval during crises, and how do those drops compare to Trump's lows?
Executive summary
Presidential approval typically spikes at the outset of a crisis and then erodes — a pattern scholars call the "rally‑around‑the‑flag" followed by a drift [1] — and among modern presidents Richard Nixon recorded one of the deepest sustained slumps (29% at the end of his fifth year) while Donald Trump’s approval during and after crises has been unusually low by modern standards, with Gallup lows reported in the mid‑30s and term‑average figures below many predecessors [2] [3]. Comparing crisis‑era drops requires care because polling baselines, timing and averaging methods differ across sources [4] [5].
1. How approval behaves in crises: the general rule and data sources
Political scientists and polling historians observe that approval commonly jumps during an acute crisis and then declines as the event unfolds and its consequences are felt, a dynamic visible across multiple datasets tracked by institutions such as Gallup, the Roper Center and the American Presidency Project [1] [6] [4].
2. The largest documented post‑war slumps: Nixon’s fall as the benchmark
Among post‑war presidents, Richard Nixon’s approval trajectory stands out for its depth: at one point in his later presidency his Gallup‑era measures fell to the upper 20s (29% noted in comparative accounts), a decline that remains one of the largest sustained drops recorded in the modern polling era [2] [7].
3. Other big crisis swings in modern history: pattern more than single events
Analysts point to multiple presidents who saw large swings tied to crises — for example, presidents who enjoyed strong short‑term "rallies" (after 9/11 for George W. Bush) before approvals receded as long‑term policy fallout and economic trends took hold — a pattern visible in the historical compilations and crisis analyses published by Gallup, RealClearPolitics and academic archives [7] [1] [4].
4. Where Trump fits: record lows, narrow margins and unusual baselines
Multiple sources characterize Trump’s approval as historically low for a modern president: he was, according to Business Insider summarizing Gallup data, the first president since Gallup began tracking to never exceed 50% during his term, and Gallup recorded a low of 36% in July 2024 [3]. Other trackers and outlets report similar low‑level averages and point out that his second‑term approval entered at historically low levels and then dropped — with some coverage noting a 21‑point decline from his inauguration figure to an August benchmark in one Gallup analysis [8] [9].
5. Comparing magnitudes: Nixon vs. Trump — similar depth, different contexts
Direct numeric comparisons are complicated by differing polling methodologies and by whether one measures single‑poll lows, term averages, or crisis‑period drops, but contemporary syntheses find that Nixon’s sub‑30s approval represents one of the deepest post‑war troughs while Trump’s lows in the mid‑30s place him among the most unpopular modern presidents as well; some analysts even note that, among post‑war two‑term presidents, only Nixon had a lower approval late in a term than Trump did at comparable points [2] [3].
6. Caveats and what the data do not settle
The datasets available — Gallup, Roper, American Presidency Project and media averages — vary in question wording, timing and aggregation, which affects measured drops and makes any precise ranking of "largest crisis drops" contingent on the chosen metric; the sources consulted document the broad pattern and give concrete lows for Nixon and Trump but do not provide a single canonical list ranking every president by crisis‑linked decline [6] [4] [5].
7. Bottom line for historical comparison
The historical record, as synthesized by polling archives and recent journalism, shows that Nixon’s decline remains the poster child for a catastrophic post‑crisis plunge and that Trump’s approval during crises has been unusually low for the modern era — often in the mid‑30s and reflected in low term averages — placing him in the same conversation as Nixon for depth of unpopularity, even as methodological differences counsel caution in declaring a definitive numeric ordering [2] [3] [10].