How worried should Republicans be about Trump’s polls?: At the 100-day mark, Donald Trump has been hit with a run of negative polls, showing across the board that the president has lost a great deal of support since retaking office in January.
It’s gotten to the point where the president has threatened to investigate pollsters, while also pushing Fox News to fire their pollster- a threat his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, repeated earlier this week while appearing on that network.
Has America Turned on Trump? What the Polls Might Mean
Indeed, the polling news for Trump is mostly bad.
The RealClearPolling aggregation has him with an average disapproval rating of 52.1 percent, with 45.2 percent approving.
Most recent polls have shown Trump with a negative approval rating spread in the double digits, except for the traditionally pro-Republican Rasmussen poll, which had Trump in positive territory, and Emerson’s, which had him even.
But the most recent Emerson/YouGov poll has the spread at -11, Reuters/Ipsos has Trump at -11 as well, while even The Daily Mail has him at -10. NewsNation has him at -12, with CBS News putting him at -10.
The news is even worse for Trump on the economy, where every single one of the 14 polls listed has him in negative territory. And Trump’s tariff policies, across many polls, remain very unpopular.
These poll numbers, despite Trump and Miller’s protest to the contrary, are not the result of an anti-Trump conspiracy, as some of those polls have shown very good results for the president in the past.
The question is, how much does that matter?
Do Polls Mean Anything?
According to a report this week in The Hill, Trump’s poll numbers have “become a concern” for the GOP.
Now, Trump can’t run for president again, and the midterm elections are a year and a half away. But there are still plenty of reasons for Trump’s party to be concerned.
The Hill story quoted Republican operatives who say that the president “needs to stop with the turbulence on tariffs and focus on fulfilling the promises he made as a presidential candidate on the economy.”
One strategist, Kevin Madden, went on the record for the story.
“Trump won in 2024 because a broader coalition of voters were nostalgic for the pre-COVID economy of Trump’s first term, and they believed Trump was better suited to address their concerns about inflation,” Madden told the outlet. However, Trump has instead pursued the tariff policy, the volatility of which has not delivered what voters wanted.
While the 2026 elections are a ways away, Madden added that the drop in recent months in the president’s popularity is “exactly the type of shift you worry about ahead of midterms.”
Will Tariffs Resolve Themselves?
The natural question is, what will the Trump Administration do to course-correct, amid their sluggish poll numbers?
The theory of the case is that the tariff threats will lead to trade deals with China and other countries, which will put an end to both uncertainty and the price increases that have resulted from the new levies.
However, it doesn’t appear that any solution is anywhere close, at least with China.
Scott Bessent, the Secretary of the Treasury, said Wednesday in a Fox News interview that the administration has “put China to the side” in trade talks, while focusing on potential deals with other partners, per The Hill.
This follows reports that China has been slow to respond to U.S. overtures for trade talks.
“We’ve got 18 important trading partners. We put China to the side. Seventeen have not escalated; we are in negotiations with them. There’s a process in place,” Bessent said of the talks, adding that the non-China trade partners have approached the U.S.
One such country, Canada, earlier this week delivered a rebuke to the Trump Administration, electing the Liberal Party and its leader, Mark Carney, to a full term in office. The Conservative Party had been favored throughout last year, before Trump began talking about making Canada the 51st state, and targeting Canada early on for tariffs.
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 authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
