Nixon's approval rating fell to 24% during Watergate (Gallup), but Truman bottomed at 23% after Korean War losses in January 1952, which Gallup claims to be the all-time low for modern Presidents.
Here are a couple articles:
Posted on Fri, Mar. 25, 2005
Bush's approval rating hits new low for his presidency
By Ron Hutcheson
Knight Ridder Newspapers
www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11232062.htm
WASHINGTON - President Bush's job-approval rating has sunk to 45 percent, the lowest of his presidency, amid public opposition at his intervention in the Terri Schiavo case and growing concern over soaring gasoline prices.
The slide in Bush's standing comes at a time when he needs all the political leverage he can get to push through his embattled plan to change Social Security. The 45 percent rating is a far cry from his record 90 percent approval after the Sept. 11 attacks, but it's still well above the low marks scored by most recent presidents, and it's also within range of Bush's relatively steady poll numbers over the past year.
Except for a slight bounce after the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections, Bush's job-approval rating has been stuck in the high 40s to low 50s since early 2004. The Gallup polling organization tests the president's standing almost weekly by asking voters if they "approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job."
SNIP
Still, even at his current low point, Bush outscores every other recent president's low point since John Kennedy, who bottomed out with a 56 percent approval rating.
Richard Nixon holds the modern record for the lowest approval rating - 24 percent - during the Watergate scandal that forced his resignation. Bush's father, whose approval high was 89 percent after the Persian Gulf War, saw his rating plummet to 29 percent amid an economic downturn. Jimmy Carter sank to 28 percent at his low point.
Bush professes little interest in polls, even though he and his aides pay close attention to them.
2) Historical Look at Presidential Disapproval Ratings
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
by Joseph Carroll
http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=10534&pg=2Much of the attention paid to public opinion polls on a president's performance in office focuses on the percentage of Americans who approve of the way that person is handling his job. But what insights can be gained by looking at presidential disapproval ratings?
George W. Bush
The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted June 24-26, finds that 45% of Americans approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, while a slim majority, 53%, disapprove. Since he took office, Bush's lowest disapproval ratings occurred in September 2001, a little over a week after the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. A Sept. 21-22 poll found 90% of Americans approving and only 6% disapproving of Bush. In contrast, the current results represent the worst ratings of Bush's presidency. The current approval rating ties Bush's lowest (45% in March 2005), but this poll finds his highest disapproval rating ever.
SNIP
Historical Comparisons
Ever since Gallup first started asking Americans to rate the president in the late 1930s, seven other presidents have experienced a time when a majority of Americans have disapproved of them. Only four presidents never had a disapproval rating over 50%: John F. Kennedy's highest disapproval was 30% about two weeks before his death; Dwight Eisenhower's highest was 36% in March 1958; and both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Gerald Ford scored a 46% disapproval rating as their highest.
Bill Clinton's highest disapproval rating was 54% in September 1994. In fact, several polls that year found at least 50% of Americans disapproving of Clinton's performance as president.
In the summer of his re-election bid, 60% of Americans told Gallup they disapproved of the way George H.W. Bush was handling the presidency. Across the 14 polls conducted from May 1992 through October 1992, a majority of Americans expressed disapproval in Bush.
In January 1983, 56% of Americans said they disapproved of Ronald Reagan. Five polls conducted from December 1982 through February 1983 found at least 50% of Americans disapproving of Reagan.
Many of the polls conducted in 1979 and 1980 found majority disapproval of Jimmy Carter's performance. His highest disapproval was 59% in June and July 1979.
Just prior to his resignation as president, 66% of Americans said they disapproved of the way Richard Nixon was handling the presidency.
In March 1968, Gallup found that 52% of Americans disapproved of Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson's disapproval ratings were at 50% or higher only four times in his presidency.
Harry Truman scored the highest disapproval rating in Gallup's history -- 67% -- in January 1952. Truman also scored the lowest approval rating in Gallup's history, 23%, in the same poll. 
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