Donald Trump: President claims his approval rating is better than Obama's 'by far'. He's wrong

Donald Trump recently boasted that his poll ratings were better than Barack Obama’s were around this time during his presidency.

The US president tweeted on Sunday:

Presidential Approval numbers are very good – strong economy, military and just about everything else. Better numbers than Obama at this point, by far. We are winning on just about every front and for that reason there will not be a Blue Wave, but there might be a Red Wave!

Trump claims that his approval ratings will usher a Republican ‘Red Wave’ in the coming elections.

There’s just one, small problem with his claim: it’s not correct.

According to Gallup’s most recent numbers, taken the last week of July, Trump has a 40 per cent approval rating.

When Obama was US president at the same time, his approval rating stood at 45 per cent.

Although, the conservative Rasmussen Reports put Obama’s numbers at 46 per cent on 3 August 2018, and Trump at 48 per cent on the same day eight years later, according to the New York Post.

Journalists also weighed in, with Toronto Star Washington correspondent Daniel Dale calling out the US president for lying, citing polling averages by RealClearPolitics.

Although Trump praises the polls in his tweet, earlier this year he claimed polls showing him behind Hilary Clinton in the 2016 election were a form of voter suppression. Speaking at the NRA convention in Dallas Texas, he said:

You weren’t sure that Trump was going to win, but you all went out there. You all went out there and you voted.

I remember they came out with a lot of phony polls. You know what that’s called. Suppression.

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