President Donald Trump often blasts his predecessor, Barack Obama, and repeatedly tries to separate their administrations. But recent polling shows that, just like Obama before him, Trump has started to lose support among the white voters who helped put him in the White House.
The Republican billionaire's job approval rating among white voters has plummeted to 41 percent from 49 percent in February, according to the latest Pew Research Center poll results released Thursday. Those figures are a far cry from the 58 percent of the total white vote Trump claimed on Election Day last year.
During the eight years of his presidency, Obama, too, lost favor among white voters. When Obama's presidency began in January 2009, he had a 63 percent approval rating among whites. That was down to 47 percent when he left office in January of this year, according to Gallup's data.
Pew blamed Trump's decline on a number of factors, most notably approval among Republicans. He held a commanding 84 percent approval rating among Republicans 10 months ago, but that figure has since dropped to 76 percent. The president has spent much of his first year in office catering to his base, but the large dip in GOP support could be a sign he's losing control of his own party.
Trump also lost approval among older voters—47 percent of people age 50 and older supported the president in February, compared to 38 percent now—and among white evangelical Protestants, 61 percent of whom now support the president, down from 78 percent.
Trump's approval among blacks also fell over the past 10 months, to seven percent from 14 percent, while his standing among Hispanic voters is stagnant at 17 percent.
Obama experienced a decline among Hispanics: The 44th president enjoyed 74 percent approval when he started his first term in 2009, but that number slipped to 69 percent as he was on his way out.
Amoong blacks, Obama's approval rating had climbed to 92 percent when he left office from 86 percent in January 2009.
Trump's poor approval numbers with minority voters—his overall mark is 32 percent—fall along party lines when juxtaposed previous administrations. Both Obama and Democratic President Bill Clinton had very high numbers among black voters, with the latter registering approval ratingss as high as 90 percent during his eight years.
White voters showed far more approval of Republican George W. Bush in his first year. The 43rd president scored a 60 percent approval rating among whites prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. That number skyrocketed across all races, but reached as high as 90 percent among whites, according to Gallup.
