Amid impeachment trial, President Trump gets highest job approval rating since taking office: Gallup

President Donald Trump's approval rating has hit a new high and the Republican Party's image is the best it's been since 2005, according to new Gallup polling released Tuesday morning.

The poll, which was conducted in January during President Trump's ongoing impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate, puts the president's job approval at 49%, the highest approval rating Trump has seen from Gallup since he took office in January 2017.

A post from Gallup's Jeffrey Jones attributed the higher numbers to higher levels of approval among Republicans and independents and points to his 94% approval rating among Republicans, which is up 7 percentage points from early January. His approval rating among independents is up 5 points to 42%, the poll found.

While reaction to the impeachment efforts against the president may be a factor in driving the numbers, Gallup also said that economic confidence, Trump's recent victory on the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal, and his recent actions squaring off against Iran may have played a factor.

Trump wouldn't be the first president to see his numbers jump after being impeached. To put things in historical context, the polling firm noted that former President Bill Clinton also saw an approval rating spike after the House voted to impeach him and that his numbers remained above pre-impeachment levels through the rest of his 1999 Senate trial.

The polling also had some positive news for the Republican Party as a whole. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said they had a positive image of the GOP, which is the first time that the party has risen above the 50% mark since the George W. Bush administration in 2005. That statistic stands in contrast to the Democratic Party's 45% approval rating, which is down 3 points from September.

The poll of a random 1,033 respondents Jan. 16-29 in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

President Trump's Senate impeachment trial formally began on Jan. 16 and is expected to conclude with a final vote Wednesday.