Donald Trump’s approval ratings are poor, and they have been for most of his second presidency.
According to RealClear Politics’ polling average, Trump’s approval rating is 38.5 percent, with a 60.2 percent disapproval rating, for a 21.7-point spread.
President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks at a Military Mothers’ Day event, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)
President Donald J. Trump speaks to the press during a presentation of the Religious Liberty Commission Report in the Oval Office, Friday, June 26, 2026. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)
Every poll in the survey shows Trump down double digits, with Reuters/Ipsos and CNN showing a spread of more than 30 points.
Historically, the disapproval rating is close to the worst of Trump’s presidency, though it hit 60.5 last week.
Trump hasn’t been in positive territory since March of 2025, in the opening weeks of his second term.
What does Trump think of these polls, which universally show him with low ratings? In true Trumpian fashion, he doesn’t believe them.
“Fake Polls”: Trump Can’t Keep His Mouth Shut, and It Looks Bad
Trump gave an interview this week to Byron York of the Washington Examiner, where he was asked about his approval rating.
“It’s fake,” Trump answered. “It’s fake.” He also cited Wedgewood Polls, a new polling company that admitted earlier this month that it had fabricated its data.
“The job approval, they said it’s 37, 38?” Trump told the journalist. “I’m not at 38.”
Trump maintained that, despite the polling, he remains popular.
“I don’t believe anybody could beat me,” Trump told the Examiner, “I think that if I needed it, which I don’t, I think 60.”
A presidential approval rating is simply the percentage of voters who approve of a candidate’s job and is not meant to represent a one-to-one comparison of what percentage of the vote the candidate would get in a head-to-head election.
“Yeah, I think I’d be in the 60s now,” Trump said, referring to his theoretical approval rating if he were on the ballot this year. “Now, in the Republican Party, I’m way up. Show him the 99%. Have you seen it?”
First, approval-rating polls don’t account for who the other candidate is.
For another, Trump did not get 60 percent of the vote in 2024, when he was more popular than he is today.
He received only 49.8 percent of the popular vote in 2026, compared with 48.3 percent for Kamala Harris, with the rest going to other candidates.
There is little doubt, though, that Trump is governing as if he were more popular than he actually is.
As he told York in the interview, he knows he remains popular with his hardcore base.
“I always cater to my base,” Trump told York. “My base is big. I think my base is close to 100% of the Republican Party.
What the Wedgewood Controversy Shows, And What It Doesn’t
Wedgewood Polling released polls earlier this cycle.
Media outlets cited them, and some polling averages even included them.
However, the firm’s since-suspended X account posted last week that most of its work was fabricated, and that it had been launched as an “experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities” of the polling industry.
This followed FiftyPlusOne, an election data site, saying it caught Wedgewood faking its data.
Wedgewood came clean before FiftyPlusOne published its findings.
The company said in its since-deleted post, as reported by PBS, that it wanted to demonstrate a hypothesis: “How easy is it for an entirely fabricated polling firm to gain traction, be taken seriously, and expose how little scrutiny exists in media and public commentary?”
They also described themselves as “a fictional entity run by a small group of industry veterans.”
They appeared to have demonstrated their point, even though “scrutinization” is not a word (they probably meant “scrutiny”)
As embarrassing as it is for the polling industry and media outlets that fell for the hoax, the Wedgewood affair doesn’t mean all polling is fake and untrustworthy.
That’s because most major polls from media outlets like CBS News, Reuters, the New York Times, CNN, and the Financial Times are much more established and have built reputations over time.
They get things right sometimes and wrong at other times, but there is no real evidence that they fabricate data or conspire with one another to help one side or the other.
And right now, at least on the president’s approval rating, all those polls point in the same direction.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has written thousands of articles on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
