Trump's approval at HISTORIC record low

The struggling economy that won him the presidency is now driving voters away.

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Donald Trump’s approval numbers are collapsing. Not dipping or wobbling. Completely collapsing.

If you take away nothing else from this analysis, take this: the very issue that delivered Trump the presidency, the economy, is now driving voters away from him.

Let’s go through the numbers.

A brutal approval rating

A new national poll shows Trump with 34% approval and 53% disapproval. That’s a net approval of negative 19.

Negative 19.

For a president barely out of the first year of a term, that is a disastrous number. There’s no creative spin that rescues that. You don’t land at 34% approval because of a messaging hiccup. You land there because something fundamental is not connecting with voters.

What makes this even more politically dangerous is where the erosion is happening.

The economy is the problem

Trump is underwater on the economy.

The president who ran almost exclusively on economic dissatisfaction is now in negative territory on economic performance.

Republicans have lost seven points on “economy and jobs,” dropping from a ten-point advantage to just three. On cost of living, they’ve lost eight points. On immigration, they’ve lost eleven. On threat to democracy, the numbers were already bad and have worsened further.

When you ask voters how they are doing economically, the pattern is unmistakable.

If people feel financially stable, they are more likely to say they’re satisfied with Trump’s job performance.

If they are struggling, Trump’s support collapses.

And here is the part that should make Republicans nervous: this erosion is happening inside Trump’s own coalition.

Even among Trump voters, those who say they are not doing well financially are moving away from him. That is how political realignments begin, with people quietly deciding that the promised relief never arrived.

Cost of living is crushing everything else

Yes, Trump’s immigration numbers have worsened. Yes, his foreign policy ratings are slipping.

But those issues are not driving the electorate right now.

The dominant concerns are cost of living, inflation, food prices, gas prices, jobs, and everyday expenses. Those are the issues voters cite as most important. And on those issues, the numbers are moving away from Trump and toward Democrats.

In a generic ballot test, Democrats now hold a seven-point lead among likely voters, just eight and a half months before the midterms. That is not a comfortable position for Republicans.

And this isn’t unprecedented. Democrats experienced something similar in 2024. Under President Biden, officials repeatedly told voters the economy was strong. That message didn’t resonate with people whose grocery bills and rent were climbing. Telling people the economy is good does not convince someone who feels squeezed every month.

Now Republicans are learning the same lesson in reverse.

Culture war vs. cost of living

The culture war may energize social media. It may generate viral clips and cable news debates. But when voters walk into the ballot booth, they are thinking about rent, groceries, gas, and job security.

The economic argument that helped elect Trump was simple: things are worse under Biden, and I will fix it.

That promise is now colliding with reality.

You can campaign on bringing prices down. Actually bringing prices down is much harder. Sustained price declines would require deflation, and deflation is usually the result of severe economic contraction. Presidents cannot simply command prices to fall without triggering broader economic consequences.

The expectation was set high. The delivery has fallen short and the approval numbers are reflecting that gap.

The political reversal

Trump won power on economic promises.

He is now losing support because voters do not believe those promises have materialized.

And the most significant warning sign for Republicans is not just that independents are drifting away; it’s that economically struggling Trump voters are drifting away too.

Economic dissatisfaction can carry a candidate into office. It can also carry that same candidate out of favor just as quickly.

If current trends hold, the midterms will not be about immigration rhetoric or culture war theatrics. They will be about whether voters feel better off than they did before.

Right now, an increasing number of them are saying they don’t.

And the numbers are starting to show it.

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