Trump favorability hits new high

Donald Trump’s favorability rating has spiked as the president-elect enjoys a honeymoon period with voters ahead of his inauguration next month.

A Bloomberg Politics survey released Wednesday found that 50 percent of those polled have a positive view of Trump. That’s up from only 33 percent who viewed Trump favorably in the same poll from August.

{mosads}It’s a significant reversal for Trump, who was a historically unpopular presidential candidate. Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton were among the most disliked candidates in the modern era.

Until the release of Wednesday’s Bloomberg poll, Trump had not reached the 50 percent favorability mark in any survey conducted in the last two years since he began running for president.

Most surveys have shown Trump deep underwater. In the RealClearPolitics average, Trump is at 57.5 percent negative and only 38.4 percent positive.

One Quinnipiac survey from May found Trump with a 49-point net negative rating, at 20 percent positive and 69 percent negative.

While Trump’s recovery is impressive, it’s a far cry from where President Obama was around the time of his inauguration. In January 2009, a Gallup survey put Obama’s favorability rating at 68 percent.

Trump also trails the post-election favorability rating enjoyed by the last Republican president, George W. Bush. In December 2000, a Gallup survey put Bush’s favorability rating at 59 percent.

Still, Trump’s surge in popularity should benefit his ability to govern in the short term. Seventy-three percent of those surveyed said they’d be fine with Trump recalibrating his positions from the campaign.

“The public seems to be giving him a long leash,” said pollster Ann Selzer. “Most Americans don’t seem concerned about him changing positions that were the core of his campaign.”

The Bloomberg survey of 999 U.S. adults was conducted between Dec. 2 and Dec. 5 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.