According to Gallup Trump is currently enjoying a 42% approval rating, and his approval ratings have been called historically low among modern presidents. And indeed, the average approval rating for a President in May (from Ike to Obama) is about 62%. However, we have had one President who polled within a margin of error of Trump - William Jefferson Clinton, at 45%.
So here's the question - what were the circumstances of Clinton's first 100 days that led to such low ratings?
As you said, at this point of his presidency a few months in, in early May of 1993, Clinton was at a 45% approval rating. Clinton's lowest approval rating then actually slipped to 37% - a low-point mark I believe he reached in early June of 1993.
The reasons for these low ratings early on were largely tied to what many deemed to be Clinton's poor handling and implementation of his domestic agenda out of the gate. His initial attempts at implementing his early economic policies after taking office were quickly called out very effectively (largely by the Republicans of course) as being something that would raise taxes for the bulk of Americans, and that was deemed very troublesome by many of the population, as Clinton initially failed to counter those claims very efficiently or effectively.
Clinton's support of the "Brady Bill" (aka the "Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act") early on into his presidency when it was initially introduced by Chuck Schumer in February of 1993 also hurt Clinton's numbers badly amongst 2nd Amendment advocates in the next few months.
The whole "gays in the military" and the plan for the "Don't ask, don't tell" Clinton/Democrat policy also is deemed to have hurt his polling numbers early on amongst a considerable number of the electorate (both Dems and Republicans). He also took some early flak for his health care reform ideas (championed in large part by the then First Lady Hillary Clinton), and his early plans and support for NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) brought him a lot of heat from both sides of the aisle (and from Ross Perot supporters as well).
Of course, there was also the crazy "HairGate" scandal in early May of 1993, where Bill Clinton infamously received an hour-long haircut aboard Air Force One while it was parked on the tarmac at LA International Airport, where the delay caused by him getting his haircut was said to have forced the closure of two runways at the airport for security reasons for about an hour (said to have resulted in huge delays for many passengers on other flights inbound and outbound from the airport). That did not play well in the media at all, and was made by many in the press to initially have Clinton look like an entitled ass who cared little for the average traveller, even with some press calling it "the most expensive haircut in history". It was later revealed a couple months or so later that no flights were actually affected by Clinton's desire to get a trim that day aboard Air Force One on the tarmac at LAX, but the initial damage had been done and that hurt his May (and June) 1993 polling numbers as well.
Basically, it was a host of all those things that affected domestic policies that served to drop his early poll numbers quite low. As we know though, Clinton later rebounded quite well, and even survived the Monica Lewinsky affair and impeachment proceedings to emerge to be recognized as quite a popular President after his two terms in office were complete in 2001.
Im surprised no one has mentioned the three-candidate nature of the election. Clinton only won the election with 43.01% to start with. Bush had 37.45% and Ross Perot 18.91%. Clinton never really had a majority to start with. Others have commented on why he slipped but I think it's important to remember he never started over 50% really in the first place.
Hello everyone,
If you are a first time visitor, welcome! This thread is trending high right now and getting a lot of attention, but it is important to remember those upvotes represent interest in the question itself, and it can often take time for a good answer to be written. The mission of /r/AskHistorians is to provide users with in-depth and comprehensive responses, and our rules are intended to facilitate that purpose. We remove comments which don't follow them for reasons including unfounded speculation, shallowness, and of course, inaccuracy. Making comments asking about the removed comments simply compounds this issue. So please, before you try your hand at posting, check out the rules, as we don't want to have to warn you further.
I would like to especially remind people that news websites and personal anecdotes are not acceptable sources.