Donald Trump: The most unpopular US election winner could win again in 2020

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Donald Trump is the first president to ever be elected while being actively disliked by the majority of Americans. Trump was also the first person elected president who was significantly less popular than his counterpart.
Most Americans have heard of presidents losing the popular vote but winning the election. But to win while the majority of Americans oppose you? How is that possible?At the time of the election, Trump had the highest unfavorability rating in history, with over 61% of Americans having an “unfavorable” view or “disapproving” of Trump. (There’s also an “undecided” option.)
Luckily for Trump, he faced a historically unpopular opponent. Before 2016, no losing presidential candidate had had an unfavorable rating above 47%. But on election eve, Hillary Clinton’s was 52%, an unprecedented election in American history.Pretty soon, Americans will start to hear nothing but polls, predictions and political forecasts in the news cycle for the 2020 elections. But, as a statistician and political polling expert, we think that there is one polling prediction device that will be overlooked and misunderstood: approval ratings.
Winning without the popular vote
History has been rather kind to presidents who didn’t win the popular vote. Trump is the fifth U.S. president to lose the popular vote and win the Electoral College.All presidents have experienced a bump in popularity between election and Inauguration Day. But only Trump still found his approval rating – the percent of Americans who approve of the way the president is handling his job – below 50% upon entering office.

 According to FiveThirtyEight, the day Trump stepped into the White House, he had only a 45.5% approval rating. This stands in stark contrast to Barack Obama, for example, who took office with a 68% approval rating.