According to the widely respected amalgamation of weighted polls produced by FiveThirtyEight, on January 1 this year Donald Trump had a 42.6 per cent approval rating and a 52.9 per cent disapproval rating.

That represents the lowest score at the start of an election year for any modern US president standing for re-election, apart from Gerald Ford, who went on to lose in 1976. Despite that, in January few could dismiss the possibility of a Trump re-election. As an incumbent with the benefit of a strong economy, the President's chances of winning were at that time rated higher than they had been in January 2016.