… What does it mean, exactly, to “approve” of a president? Does it mean you like Trump enough that, if there were an election tomorrow, you would vote for him? Does it mean that you like him personally? Or does it mean that you don’t like him personally but think that he’s handling affairs of state well enough anyway?
We have George Gallup, the originator of the Gallup poll, to thank for this ambiguity. An Iowa-born journalism professor and advertising consultant, Gallup spent years pondering what question might best assess presidential performance — separating it, in the minds of poll respondents, from considerations like voting preference and personal affinity — before arriving in 1945 at the wording Gallup and other pollsters have used ever since. CONT.
Charles Homans, New York Times Magazine