Donald Trump’s net job approval average in both the Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight averages has fallen about seven points over the first month of his second term, leaving his approval rating just barely above his disapproval. This is a historically bad beginning for a presidency. The only worse example is Donald Trump’s first presidency.
Who cares about poll numbers anymore, you might ask. Congressional Republicans should. They are on the ballot next year, and they could easily lose control of the House. If Trump doesn’t defy political gravity, he could drag them down, just as he did in his first term.
Presidential polling honeymoons always end, but rarely so fast.
Bill Clinton, in Gallup polling, had a rough beginning but didn’t go underwater until May 1993, four months in. At the end of February, his 59 per cent approval was thirty points higher than his disapproval, marking an eight-point drop in net approval from the prior month.
George W. Bush, who came into office without a popular-vote majority, was cruising in the polls after one month, with a Real Clear Politics job-approval average of around 60 per cent, nearly forty points more than his disapproval. Net approval narrowed to thirteen points before the 11 September attacks prompted an intense national unity that temporarily sent his poll numbers into the stratosphere. His numbers wouldn’t go underwater until the summer of 2004, though he recovered enough to eke out re-election.
Barack Obama had a six-point slippage in net job approval over his first month in 2009, according to Real Clear Politics. Still, his job approval was steady in the low 60s, and his disapproval ticked up from a modest 20 per cent to 27 per cent. The bruising, though ultimately successful, fight for healthcare reform would drive Obama’s numbers underwater, but not until early 2010.
Trump essentially spent his entire first term underwater in the polls, won the presidency in 2016 without a popular-vote majority; his job disapproval was consistently higher than his approval in both Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight polling averages.
In 2024, Trump won the popular vote (albeit with a plurality, not a majority) and during his first month remained above water in the job approval averages. In turn, some media coverage of the recent polls has noted that Trump is more popular than ever. But grading Trump on a curve doesn’t give us an accurate read of the electoral pulse. And it doesn’t inform Congressional Republicans how firm their political ground is. Remember, Trump will not be on the ballot in 2026, but the House Republican majority will.
Trump’s numbers are sinking because he has swiftly implemented radical policies many people do not want. According to the Washington Post-Ipsos poll, the public opposes mass civil service firings, shutdowns of federal agencies including the foreign aid conduit USAID, banning transgender people from military service, and scrapping diversity programs. Only 34 per cent of respondents approved of Elon Musk’s involvement in the administration, while 57 per cent believe Trump has “gone beyond his authority as president.”
Trump’s voters expected him to improve the economy, yet approval of his handling of the economy is already underwater, with huge majorities still upset about food and energy prices. While Trump has been extremely busy gutting the federal government, he’s done nothing about the cost of living — the issue on the minds of most Americans — except institute new tariffs, which raise prices, and threaten many more. A recent University of Michigan survey found consumer sentiment declined by ten points, driven by inflation fears.
Presidents and their parties can recover from slippages, of course. Obama’s Affordable Care Act was initially unpopular and, combined with the sluggish recovery from the Great Recession, led to an awful Democratic midterm in 2010. But his overall legislative and economic record looked better by 2012, when he won re-election. Six years later, Republicans suffered a backlash in the midterms after trying to repeal Obamacare program.
So, don’t assume Trump’s poll slide will continue. But if you are a congressional Republican, can you be confident that slapdash decisions made by Trump and Musk today will look better in nineteen months? Nothing from Trump’s first administration suggests he learned how poor governing choices could lead to poor electoral outcomes, and nothing in the past month suggests any lessons were learned from the first administration beyond how to break things faster.
Perhaps Republicans will cling to the hope that Trump’s bravado will matter more than policy decisions and economic conditions. After all, Trump is “one of the most skilled propagandists in history,” as the historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat told the New York Times this week.
But Trump’s propaganda skills have worked best when he is out of office and can blame everything on those in power. They failed him in 2018 when the Republicans lost the House and in 2020 when Democrats regained the White House and the Senate. When you’re in charge and things go wrong, deflecting blame is much harder, even for the most shameless propagandists.
Trump’s hold on Republican officeholders remains strong. I doubt many of them support Trump’s echoing of Russian narratives about Ukraine or defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan for annual 8 per cent cuts in the military budget over the next five years. But they are afraid to say as much and risk the president’s wrath and a primary challenge.
Yet a continuing presidential poll slide with a midterm election on the horizon could, and should, focus the mind not just on the president’s temperament but on the voters. Trump could become a dead weight for his party. Congressional Republicans in swing districts and those not necessarily seen as vulnerable today should think about what has been unthinkable: creating some distance between themselves and Trump. •
