The history of organized national presidential/political polling may have begun way back in President Andrew Jackson's time. That's pretty amazing when you think about it, considering the glacial pace of long-range communications in that horse-and-buggy era (the 1820s and 1830s). There were no telephone polls because there were no telephones. Even the telegraph network in this country was still in the future. Railroads hadn't conquered the continent yet. Most news went as fast as either a horse could run or a boat could float. In fact, the major waterways of the era were the equivalent of the Interstate highway system -- they were the funnels through which most travellers (and most news) flowed. And this was the dawn of a golden age of boat travel, because of the rise of steam-powered riverboats.

There were two main ways to travel from the Atlantic coastline to the interior of the United States at the time. The first was the Erie Canal, which linked (via the Hudson River) New York City with the Great Lakes (and all the cities which touch them). The second was not as complete as the first, since there was a gap (over the Appalachians) which had to be traversed by land, but it went a lot further and reached more of the true frontier of the United States at the time. This started with the Ohio River (starting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), which then led down to the Mississippi River (and all the way to New Orleans).

Paddle-wheel riverboats going up and down the Mississippi and Ohio were as important for the time period as the I-95 corridor is today (or any other major Interstate highway route, really). Freight and farm produce could be moved quickly and easily (relative to other forms of transportation) and interstate commerce truly took off as a result. But it also made it easy for people to flow along these routes as well -- and this meant people from all walks of life. It wasn't reserved for the wealthiest-of-the-wealthy, in other words. Which meant that the passengers on a single riverboat would provide a pretty good cross-section of the American public at the time (or at least the ones who were then allowed to vote).

So politicians began hiring people to travel up and down these routes, and talk to as many people on each trip as they could. They would interview as many varied types of traveller as they could manage, to try to get an accurate sense of "how the country is feeling." Which is the essence of a public opinion poll. The science of polling would emerge later, but for the time it was a revolutionary idea -- that you could accurately put your finger on the pulse of the public and tell what they were thinking about political questions of the day, as well as the politicians themselves. Modern-day polling wouldn't develop widespread and scientific and accurate methodology until the middle of the 20th century, though, when telephones became commonplace in almost every household.

History lesson aside -- and since it is a day to focus on the presidency -- let's take a look at the polling of the current occupant of the White House, Donald Trump. Next Tuesday, he is scheduled to give his first State Of The Union speech of his second term, so it's a good time to check in with the polls.

There's just no sugar-coating it: Trump's polls are pretty dismal right now. In fact, for the first time in his second term, Trump's poll numbers are even worse than he managed in his first term -- which, at the time, represented a new all-time low in the history of modern presidential polling.

Personally, I watch a number of "poll of polls" poll-tracking averages. Three of the biggest ones all show pretty much the same thing (to slightly differing degrees, since they each have their own methodology of averaging the raw numbers of individual polls). Trump is not doing well in the public's opinion in any of these averages.

First up is RealClearPolitics. They tend to skew a little towards the Republicans, just in general (for various reasons related to their methodology). Right now, Trump is 12.9 percentage points underwater, with their polling average for Trump's job approval at only 42.2 percent, with 55.1 percent disapproving. This isn't quite the worst he's charted in his second term, since he has hit 13.1 percent underwater a few times and 13.2 percent once (coincidentally enough, on January 20th of this year, the anniversary of him taking office again).

Nate Silver has Trump doing a little worse. In Silver's poll-of-polls average, Trump sits at only 40.6 percent approval with 55.4 percent disapproving -- a gap of 14.8 percent. And the New York Times has Trump even lower, with 40 percent approval to 56 percent disapproval -- a gap of 16 points. Other poll-tracking sites have Trump down as much as 18.9 points.

The worst recent individual poll for Trump was conducted from February 6th to the 9th by AP/NORC, which showed Trump at a whopping 26 points below water, with only 36 percent approval to a dismal 62 percent disapproval.

Trump's approval polling trendline seems to have headed downward over roughly the past month or so. After starting his second term, Trump's "honeymoon period" quickly wore off and his poll numbers sank to new lows after his "Liberation Day" tariffs were announced last spring. For most of the rest of the year, Trump stayed fairly consistent, with his trendline heading a bit downwards (but only very slightly).

The first government shutdown (last year) sent his numbers more sharply downwards, although it's tough to say exactly why things changed right there (this was also in the midst of the big congressional fight over voting to force Trump to release the Epstein files, which could have contributed to the sagging numbers, especially among Trump's base). With the end of the shutdown and the eventual release of at least some of the Epstein files, Trump's numbers recovered somewhat (back to where they were before the dip, but still lower than the rest of the year). But then after the first of the year, his polling showed a second drop, which happened right at the time the videos of the first shooting death by immigration officers in Minneapolis appeared. This sent Trump's polling downwards to its current low point (although, again, it's really anyone's guess as to why it happened when it did -- this also coincided with a major Epstein files release, for instance, as well as plenty of other big events).

When you look into individual political issues, Trump is also down pretty much across the board. On the two issues that most pundits identify as why Trump got re-elected -- immigration and the economy -- Trump is now way down in the public's eye. On immigration, RealClearPolitics has Trump down 8.4 points, while Nate Silver has him down by 12.3 percentage points. And he's doing even worse on the economy, down 14.8 points according to RealClearPolitics, or 16.3 points according to Silver.

But the worst numbers for Trump by far are on the issue of inflation. Trump ran on a promise that was pretty much guaranteed to be impossible for him to keep. He didn't just promise to get inflation down to a reasonable level, he promised to bring prices back down to the level they had been before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted world trade. This was an unrealistic promise to make, so it's really no surprise that he hasn't kept it. And the public has noticed, in a big way. RealClearPolitics has Trump down a whopping 24 points on inflation, with only 36.4 percent approval and 60.4 percent disapproval. Silver's average is even worse, showing Trump down a full 25 points on inflation.

There really is no good news at all for Trump on the polling front, as these numbers show. He's down by double digits pretty much across the board, in fact. His job approval rating currently is hovering around 40 percent, but the trendline for the past month has been downwards.

Presidents normally get a small bump after delivering a State Of The Union speech, but it remains to be seen whether this will happen for Trump this time around. As things stand, it is more likely than not that the partial government shutdown (of only the Department of Homeland Security) will still be ongoing when Trump gives his speech next Tuesday -- if he doesn't reschedule it, that is. There are some cautioning him to get the impasse resolved before giving his speech, but it's an open question whether he'll take this advice or not.

Trump will, of course, lie his face off during the speech -- that's a pretty safe bet. He'll tell so many lies about how wonderful everything is now that fact-checkers trying to keep up will be in serious danger of having their heads explode. Kidding aside, the big question is whether the public at large will buy Trump's rosy talk or not.

So far, Trump hasn't been doing a great job of addressing the public's economic concerns. He prefers instead to insist that the American economy is now doing better than at any time in all of history -- which anyone with half a brain and a pair of eyes can see is just not true at all. Trump is never going to "feel your pain," instead he is going to try to gaslight everyone into believing that there is no pain whatsoever. He'll doubtlessly tout his tax cuts, but getting a slightly larger refund once a year isn't going to bring down the price of groceries or rent for average American taxpayers -- which is exactly what they expected, after Trump campaigned on it.

Presidents with dismal approval ratings (measured, before the Trump era, as "below 50 percent approval") usually don't do well in the midterm elections. Trump's approval rating is now in danger (once again) of sinking below 40 percent. He is now in the position of trying to defend the indefensible tactics of ICE while Democrats demand commonsense changes. This showdown may not be resolved by the time he gives his big speech next week. And we are less than nine months away from the midterm elections. I'll put it this way (in a nod to my historical preface today): If I were an old-time riverboat gambler, I'd be betting that the Democrats are going to capitalize on Trump's dismal polling in a big way, come November.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant