Trump is set to begin his presidency with a historically low approval rating

President-elect Donald Trump's approval rating is the lowest for any presidential transition Gallup has measured, the polling firm said on Friday.

Trump's approval rating clocked in at 44%, with 51% of respondents disapproving of the president-elect, the Gallup poll conducted two weeks before Inauguration Day found.

Those numbers represented a dip from his approval rating in mid-December, when 48% of respondents approved of Trump while another 48% disapproved.

The approval ratings are significantly lower than the three other presidential transitions measured by Gallup: Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.

At this stage of the transition, Obama had a soaring 83% approval rating with just 12% of respondents disapproving. Bush was favored by 61% of respondents while 25% were not in favor of him, and Clinton saw a 68% to 18% split.

Comparing Trump's past two splits, he has witnessed his approval rating among Democrats drop to 13% from 17% in December, and his favorability among independents has dipped dramatically from 46% to 33% over the past month.

An unusually high percentage of respondents, 44%, also believed that Trump has selected a below average or poor cabinet. Obama. Bush, and Clinton did not receive more than 13% in that category for their cabinets during the initial transition.

Gallup conducted the polling between January 4 and 8 with a random sample of 1,032 adults over 18. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.