Poll: Trump approval ratings slump amid Texas trip
"HISTORIC rainfall in Houston, and all over Texas. Floods are unprecedented, and more rain coming. Spirit of the people is incredible. Thanks!"
Tweeting several times over the weekend, anyone who follows President Trump on social media recognized the commander in chief as tuned into Hurricane Harvey's continued, devastating impact.
And yet, despite robust messaging surrounding the unprecedented hurricane's destruction in Texas, new polling suggests Trump may not weather the blow to presidential approval ratings that natural disasters often catalyze.
RELATED: Texans being evacuated during Hurricane Harvey
As of Monday, Trump's approval rating stands at 35 percent with Gallup and 42 percent with Rasmussen. Trump's 35 percent approval rating is his lowest favorable ranking with Gallup in the month of August, despite daily dips to 34 percent on August 24 and August 18.
As projected, Hurricane Harvey is bringing never before seen damage to the Houston area. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has said some 30,000 people are expected to be sent to shelters while about 450,000 people are likely to file for disaster aid.
"This is a landmark event for Texas," Brock Long, FEMA's administrator, told reporters. "Texas has never seen an event like this."
Harvey's total rainfall is likely to end with a tally of 15 to 30 inches, and while Texas and Louisiana are still expected to deal with intense rainfall through Labor Day weekend, President Trump is set to touch down in Texas on Tuesday as he hopes to present a united federal front of support for a state he won with 52 percent of the vote in the 2016 general election.
The approval rating hits presidents are seemingly bound to take in the face of natural disasters was evidenced with both Barack Obama and George W. Bush during their White House tenures.
For Bush 43, it was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After the Category 3 storm left a reported 1,833 dead and over 200,000 homes damaged along the Gulf Coast, Bush's approval rating dropped to 43.9 percent -- with the American public largely disapproving of the White House's handling of the crippling disaster.
Former President Barack Obama suffered a big drop in popularity following his "botched" response to the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill led to 17 deaths and nearly five million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf, the 44th president's approval rating dropped to nearly 44 percent. Many felt the Obama administration did not act quick enough to cap the spill.
"The Obama administration failed to act upon or fully inform the public of its own worst-case estimates of the amount of oil gushing from the blown-out BP well, slowing response efforts and keeping the American people in the dark for weeks about the size of the disaster, according to preliminary reports from the presidential commission investigating the accident," an Oct. 2010 New York Times report read.
Perhaps Trump will juice his ratings with a quick on-the-ground showing in the Lone Star State, but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott revealed on Monday that the president will not be in Houston.
"The place he will be going to will not be Houston, so [he] will not be getting into harm’s way or interrupting the evacuations or emergency response in the Houston area," Abbott said on "CBS This Morning." "He most likely will be going closer to where the hurricane hit land."
RELATED: Views from the ground: Hurricane Harvey
