Charts of the week: Internet searches, approval ratings, and the National Security Strategy from Trump’s first year

This week marks one year since Donald Trump was sworn in as U.S. president. To mark the occasion, we want to highlight a few charts and graphs from Brookings research related to President Trump’s first year in office. Click on the links or on the charts to access the full reports.

GOOGLE SEARCHES FOR DONALD TRUMP PEAKED IN JANUARY OF 2017

In a new report, Darrell West, vice president of Governance Studies and the founding director of the Center for Technology Development, utilized Google search queries and notable events from 2017 to identify search history patterns during President Trump’s first year in office. West finds that interest in Trump peaked in early 2017 during the week he was inaugurated then dropped “precipitously” to where it has evened out since the end of April.

TRUMP HAS THE LOWEST JOB APPROVAL RATING OF ANY PRESIDENT AT THE END OF HIS FIRST YEAR SINCE WWII

Governance Studies Senior Fellow John Hudak and Research Assistant Nicholas W. Zeppos examined Trump’s job approval rating and the mobilization of Democratic voters as part of their analysis on what to expect from President Trump in 2018. According to the authors, Trump’s highest job approval rating was within the first month of his presidency and his popularity has declined since. Combined with Democrats’ mobilization, the tendency for presidents to lose seats in midterm elections, and the results of early generic congressional ballots, Democrats appear to possess advantages going into November’s elections, but Hudak and Zeppos say a wave is not inevitable.

MAPPING ANALYSTS’ REACTIONS TO TRUMP’S FIRST NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY

Tarun Chhabra, a fellow in the Foreign Policy program and Project on International Security and Strategy, developed a tool to chart reactions to President Trump’s first National Security Strategy published in December. The graphic below compares U.S. analysts based on their critique of the National Security Strategy and on their assessment of Trump’s impact on U.S. foreign policy. Chhabra concludes, among other things, that after a year in office “both Republican and Democratic foreign policy circles are much more fractured—on big issues including China, trade, and democracy promotion—than the united front of anti-Trump sentiment lets on.”

Read more about what Brookings experts predict President Trump’s second year in office to entail in the Governance Studies program’s series, Trump in 2018.