President Donald Trump’s performance rating is sliding to deep low points in many of the swing states where some of the most important races of 2026 will play out, according to a series of new polls.
In a New York Times/Siena College poll published Thursday nearly half of all registered voters who responded said that the country was worse off than they were one year ago, when the president was just settling into the office and former President Joe Biden was departing the job.
Roughly 51 percent of registered voters said that life was less affordable than it was at the beginning of 2025, a blow to Trump’s argument that “affordability,” as a concept, is merely a “Democrat hoax.” Approximately 64 percent of Americans, a strong majority, say that Trump has mismanaged efforts to manage the cost of living.
The share of voters who felt that things were better off was only 32 percent. While19 percent said they felt about the same, financially speaking, one year into Trump’s second administration.
Localized effects of these feelings could be devastating for Republicans in November if things don’t change course. A separate tracking poll from The Economist and YouGov this week shows the president’s approval ratings in individual states sinking to new lows, particularly in some of the most important battleground areas set to determine control of the two chambers of Congress in the fall. In Georgia, where Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff is facing a re-election fight, Trump’s approval rating is 18.6 points in the negative. In Maine, where Republican Sen. Susan Collins is facing her own fight to retain her seat, Trump’s net approval rating is nearly the same: -18.4 percentage points.
The president even has a net negative approval rating in Alaska, a traditionally red state where Democrats are hoping that Mary Peltola’s campaign can unseat Sen. Dan Sullivan.
In the New York Times poll, the only issue on which Trump got lower marks than affordability — one of his 2024 campaign issues — was his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
The president ran for office a third time and won while pummeling Biden and his replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris, in part on his ability to bring down the price of consumer goods, energy, insurance and other expenses for families, even vowing to expand health care coverage in America to include IVF treatments.
“Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down and we will make America affordable again. We’re going to make it affordable again,” he declared at a rally in Pennsylvania in August of 2024.
But as the first year of his second term came to a close this week he now finds himself oscillating between blaming Democrats for poor economic conditions and insisting that those conditions are actually great.
In December, the president insisted at an event touting his economic agenda in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, that voters would reward the GOP for his efforts to bring drug prices down through “most favored nation” deals aimed at bringing U.S. drug prices down to international levels.
“Your drugs are coming down at levels that nobody ever thought was possible. This achievement alone should win us for midterms,” Trump argued to his crowd.
At the same rally, he attacked Democrats for criticizing a lack of progress on bringing down consumer prices: “They use the word affordability, and that's their only word. They say affordability, and everyone says, oh, that must mean Trump has high prices? No, our prices are coming down tremendously from the highest prices in the history of our country,” he said.
Overall, drugmakers still hiked prices on hundreds of medicines last year despite the administration’s efforts and prescription drug spending was still projected to increase year-over-year.
According to the Economist/YouGov polls, inflation and cost-of-living issues remain the top issue motivating voters. It has skyrocketed to new importance, according to pollsters, and is now mentioned as a leading motivator for more than four in ten Americans.
The Times poll contained another startling statistic for the White House. More than four in ten independent voters now say that Trump is on track to become one of the worst presidents of all time. Only 12 percent of independents said he was on course to be one of the greats.
Independents remain largely undecided over the midterms, according to the Times poll, but could be hoping for a course-correction directed by the Republican majorities on the Hill over the next few months.
The Times poll reviewed responses from 1,625 registered voters with a margin of sampling error of 2.8 percentage points. The Economist/YouGov’s tracking polls are based on weekly survey data.
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