A slew of new polling shows that Donald Trump’s overall approval rating is only marginally trickling downward — but voter concerns about his performance on the key issues of immigration, trade, the economy and inflation are growing.
That comes as bad timing for Republicans as they gear up to build on twin congressional majorities in the midterms next year on the back of the passage of the “big, beautiful bill”: a legislative grab-bag that lumped together several conservative priorities for quick passage — a surge of funding for immigration enforcement, and an extension of tax cuts.
Depending on which trends continue over the next six months or longer, the mood of American voters next year could spell disaster for Republicans, who won’t be running with the president at the top of the ticket. And that dynamic, by extension, could cause major headaches for Trump.
The president himself has insisted that he won’t run again in 2028 — something, by the way, that the 22nd amendment to the Constitution expressly prohibits — and while he’s likely to be active on the campaign trail next year, Republicans in Congress are only marginally less unpopular than their Democratic foes.
With a dipping approval rating for Trump — and his fate no longer directly tied to the election results —the real battle next year could well come down to a referendum on the GOP’s agenda itself.
An analysis from Nate Silver and Eli McKown-Dawson of the Silver Bulletin Substack published late last week noted that the president was being driven further underwater on the four key issues that boosted his 2024 campaign, while the president’s overall popularity was only slightly trending downward.
What Silver’s polling average found was troubling for Republicans: the percentage of Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump’s actions since taking office once again is higher than ever, and 16.7 percentage points higher than the number of Americans who said they strongly approve of his job performance. Worse, the former share has grown steadily since the beginning of the year, while the latter has dropped by almost the same amount.
What this means: right now, the Trump and congressional GOP agendas are inflaming stronger passions among the president’s critics than among his support base. Those trends could reverse over the next year, particularly if an economic upswing occurs, but the variety of issue-based polling deficits Trump now faces could make that a tough prospect.
The Economy
In the wake of Kamala Harris’ defeat in 2024, many Democrats have criticized her campaign’s shift in focus from economic issues in the final weeks of the campaign and the general inability of the party to speak about “kitchen-table” issues effectively with voters. On the heels of a recession stemming from the Covid pandemic, Democrats lamented that (in their view), Harris and the candidate she replaced, President Joe Biden, both had been unable to convincingly sell the economic recovery overseen in the years after the Covid crash.
Now, it could be Donald Trump and his party struggling to sell their message of economic recovery to voters. Having promised to supercharge the American economy and workers’ paychecks both, the president is now falling into deep unpopularity on an issue that was once one of his strengths.
A slew of polling supports this. In a Reuters/Ipsos survey on Tuesday, the president could be seen on a steep decline: just 35 percent of voters support his handling of the economy, down 3 points since the end of July and 8 percentage points since he took office.
Separately, a poll from The Economist and YouGov released Tuesday found that significant shares of voters belonging to both parties, as well as independents, are worried about what their future economic prospects look like. Only about a third of Republicans, 36 percent, said they expected their finances to be better off in a year. The shares of Democrats and independents who thought as much were predictably even lower.
Immigration
On immigration, voters have long given Trump a firm base of support. This stems from the largely firm stance of Americans who support stricter border security and immigration enforcement and the fact that Democrats almost entirely ceded the issue to Republicans.
During Biden’s presidency, the White House argued that the president lacked the authority to “shut down” the southern border, and made few attempts to counter the argument that the U.S. was letting in too many immigrants, legal or otherwise.
Still, on this issue Trump has dropped in support.
In Silver Bulletin’s polling average, the president is now behind by 4.2 percentage points on his handling of immigration-related topics, where he was once above water by seven percentage points at the beginning of his term. It’s clear why: the images of chaotic and sometimes violent ICE raids across the country have spurred outrage; in a Washington Post/Ipsos poll this week, the raids were the strongest issue motivating disapproval of the president, with 20 percent of voters who said they disapproved of Trump’s overall performance citing “immigration” issues as “the worst thing Trump has done” so far in office.
The reason for the more staggered decline (compared to other issues) was also prominent in the Post’s polling: 55 percent of respondents who said they approved of Trump’s overall job performance cited immigration as the “best thing Trump has done” since taking office. The seemingly disjointed result can be explained thusly: while Trump is gradually seeing his support base shrink on immigration-related issues, those Americans who remain in this camp are strongly supportive of the crackdowns.
Trade
Trade gets its own special mention, as it remains the closest issue tied to Americans’ perception and concerns about the economy.
In the average of polls, the two issues’ trend lines most closely mirror each other as many Americans clearly remain fearful that tariffs and other trade issues will harm economic growth and cause American businesses to stagnate, affecting things like unemployment and wage growth.
Trump’s net approval rating on trade issues is now -18.2 percent in the Silver Bulletin average. In the Post’s survey, it was a polarizing issue but one where Democrats clearly hold the advantage for now: 13 percent of respondents who said they disapproved of the president’s performance ranked the reciprocal and baseline tariffs as the worst decisions of Trump’s second term, compared to just four percent of his supporters who said it was his best move yet.
Inflation
While tied to his overall handling of the economy, on inflation Trump is committing to his biggest gamble so far. As he campaigned for the White House a second time, Trump’s economic message pivoted almost exclusively to talk about prices, both at the supermarket and the gas pump — even to the point where the candidate gave himself credit for campaigning on the issue of grocery prices, and acted like he’d been the first to consider the idea.
On his handling of inflation, Trump’s share of Americans who approve is now 30 points behind the share that disapproves. It’s a massive turnaround, and alarmingly, comes on an issue that was so toxic for Democrats in 2024 that merely bringing it up could lower voters’ support for them. In the span of eight months, Trump’s net approval rating on the issue of stopping price hikes for American consumers has dropped by 24 points.
Ok, but: there’s one bright spot for Trump here.
The Reuters/Ipsos survey found that even with Trump’s handling of inflation staggeringly unpopular, voters still believe by a 10-point margin that the GOP has a better plan for the economy, overall, than do the Democrats.
