The first 100 days of a presidency is an oft-used timespan by which to evaluate a new term in the White House.

President Donald Trump reached that milestone this week.

One hundred days in, how’s he doing?

That’s our Question of the Week for readers.

For almost every presidency, those first three months-plus are certainly a honeymoon period with Americans, especially for those who arrived in the White House after a decisive electoral victory, as Trump did with a convincing win in all the battleground states in November.

Even so, Trump has always been a divisive figure in the nation’s politics, during his first term in office just as now. Often, when his approval rating was only at about 50%, that was a high point.

But now, in late April of his second term in office, that approval rating is at 42%. What’s to blame for the low numbers?

At his January inauguration, various polls showed him with the highest approval ratings of his years in politics. He’d survived an assassination attempt before the election and had continued to campaign with vigor. Now, a New York Times/Siena College poll says 66% of voters say that the second term so far has been “chaotic,” while 59% say it’s been “scary” and 42% say it’s been “exciting.”

Just one other president in recent times had polled below 50% at this period of his presidency — Bill Clinton, just barely under the halfway mark at 49%.

Are these important numbers, or simply a reminder that you need to break eggs to make an omelet?

In a Pew poll, 59% of respondents say that DOGE and other Trump efforts to shrink government have been “careless” in approach. About the same percentage disapprove of Trump’s tariff policy. Should he disregard those thumbs-down numbers and carry on with his current approach? Or does he need to put the brakes on when he sees the response of Americans? In fact, is such polling mere background noise to which a president merely carrying out campaign promises should pay little attention?

Email your thoughts to opinion@scng.com. Please include your full name and city or community of residence. Provide a daytime phone number (it will not be published).