Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976 as the ultimate outsider in the wake of the Watergate scandal. A former Navy officer, peanut farmer and one-term governor of Georgia, Carter began his presidency with very high initial job approval ratings, which declined as the nation faced high inflation, high unemployment and an energy crisis. Prominent international incidents like the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to rallies in support for Carter, but as the crises lingered, Carter’s ratings sagged, and Ronald Reagan defeated him in his reelection bid in 1980.
Carter’s deft campaign for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination brought him from relative obscurity to party nominee. He narrowly defeated incumbent Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. Carter started his term in office with a solid 66% initial job approval rating — one of the highest for new presidents in Gallup’s records — and he enjoyed an extended honeymoon. He spent most of his first two months in office with better-than 70% approval ratings — including a personal-best 75% in March — and remained at or above 60% through the summer of 1977.
In early September 1977, Carter’s honeymoon ended, with his approval rating falling from 66% to 54%, just after he signed the controversial Panama Canal Treaty. The treaty transferred authority for the canal from the U.S. back to Panama. His support held above 50% through February 1978, when it dipped below the majority level for the first time. For much of 1978, his approval ratings were below 50%, including a series of ratings between 39% and 44% from April through September as the nation struggled with rising inflation.
Carter’s approval rating only got worse as the U.S. economy continued to struggle, with high inflation and a surge in gas prices, as well as the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. By early June, Carter’s approval had dipped to 29%, making him just one of five presidents in Gallup’s polling history — along with Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush — to have dropped below 30%. His July address pointing out a national crisis of confidence — commonly known as the “malaise” speech — failed to inspire the public.
Carter’s approval ratings remained at historically low levels into the fall of 1979. Amid the president’s declining popularity, Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy and California Gov. Jerry Brown launched campaigns to challenge Carter for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.
On Nov. 4, 1979, Iranian revolutionaries took 66 Americans hostage — most of whom remained captive for the duration of Carter’s presidency. As has occurred with other international events, the American public rallied around its leader during the hostage crisis. Carter’s job approval rating increased from 32% to 38% initially, and then took a bigger jump in late November to 51% after 13 hostages were released.
Carter, who died Dec. 29, 2024, at the age of 100, is one of seven post-World War II presidents whose average approval rating is below 50%. His presidential approval average of 45.5% essentially matches Harry Truman’s 45.4% as the second-lowest measured to date, ahead of only Donald Trump’s first term.