Several weeks of bad polling for U.S. President Donald Trump led to a new poll featuring what, in that poll, is the lowest approval rating of Trump’s second presidency.
Trump Is Losing Support: Polls
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday, 42 percent of voters approve of Trump’s performance in office, down from 43 percent three weeks earlier, and from 47 percent shortly after January’s inauguration.
The poll results, Reuters said in its analysis, “suggest many Americans are uncomfortable with his moves to punish universities he sees as too liberal and to install himself as the board chair of the Kennedy Center.”
Reuters/Ipsos found that Trump’s approval rating was underwater on most major issues, including “from inflation and immigration to taxation and rule of law.” Even on immigration, traditionally seen as Trump’s strongest issue, 45 percent of Reuters respondents approve and 46 percent disapprove.
Of those polled, 83 percent said the president “ must obey federal court rulings even if he doesn’t want to.” In addition, a full two-thirds of respondents, 66 percent, answered that they “did not think the president should be in control of premier cultural institutions such as national museums and theaters.”
And on the question of Trump remaining in office beyond his second term — something the Constitution unambiguously does not allow him to do — three-quarters of respondents, including 53 percent of Republicans, say he should not pursue that.
A Bad Average for Trump and the Polls
The Reuters/Ipsos poll is part of the RealClearPolitics average of Trump’s polling, which shows an approval rating of 46.5 percent and a disapproval rating of 50.6 percent. The Reuters poll is the worst of recent ones for the president, showing a negative spread in the double digits.
But when it comes to respondents’ views on Trump’s handling of the economy, things look much worse.
The average spread of views of Trump’s performance on the economy are -11.5. He is underwater in all nine recent polls included in the average, in most cases by double digits. Even The Daily Mail’s most recent poll, which wrapped up at the end of March, pre-“Liberation Day,” showed a -10 spread for approval of Trump on the economy. And that’s the Mail, a poll traditionally more favorable to Trump than most.
Can It Get Better?
The question must be asked about how, exactly, Trump’s approval ratings might soon improve, whether overall or specifically on the economy.
That would probably entail reaching trade deals with China and other countries, on extremely favorable terms, sometime very soon, and the idea of tariffs, and contradictory announcements about their implementation or delay, no longer ever being part of news cycles.
It would also help if a recession is avoided, and the economy suddenly returns to unquestioned prosperity. It would also require Trump to stop leaning on the Fed to lower interest rates, and to stop musing about wanting to get rid of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
It Likely Will Get Worse for Trump
That’s all unlikely, though. As pointed out by Doug Sosnik this week in the New York Times, approval ratings tend to get worse for presidents as their presidencies go on. Presidents typically have a honeymoon period that goes sour by the fall of their first year.
Joe Biden, he noted, had a 57 percent positive approval rating around his 100th day in office — close to where Trump is now, chronologically — before it plunged to 43 percent by September. In Biden’s case, that had a lot to do with COVID looking like it was defeated in the spring of 2021, before coming roaring back in the fall, around the time of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
“As more and more Americans begin to feel the pain of his policies, we may well look back on his first 100 days as the prelude to a historically unpopular presidency,” Sosnik, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, wrote in the Times.
Trump has a lot of presidency left. But at this stage, it’s not looking good for him.
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.
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