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Donald Trump at the United Nations on Sept. 22, 2026 in New York City. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images In late 2008, at the height of the Great Recession and amid two wars in the Middle East, President George W. Bush posted a historic-low approval rating of just 22 percent. Donald Trump may be coming for that crown — and with some voters, he’s more unpopular than ever.
A series of recent polls shows that while Trump’s overall approval rating is still hovering a little above 30 percent, some of the details behind the numbers are particularly devastating for an incumbent president seeking to guide his party through a contentious set of midterm elections.
A poll from CNN released this week, for instance, shows that Trump’s approval among independents is an anemic 25 percent. The network highlighted that his net approval among independents has shifted 86 points in the wrong direction since before the 2024 election. Trump’s popularity is also cratering within his own party. A recent UMass/Amherst poll found that his approval among Republicans has dropped 14 points since March, and that one in six people who voted for him would not vote for him again. Unfortunately for Republicans, Trump insisted “I’m on the ballot!” while speaking at the party’s midterm convention earlier this month.
Tatishe Nteta, provost of political science at UMass-Amherst, says it’s difficult to judge a president on broad approval alone, especially compared to past presidents, because of how polarized the electorate is currently. The president’s popularity within his own party is more telling. “It’s really important to look at the ways in which co-partisans are evaluating the president, and [Trump] has witnessed a decreasing number of those in his camp assessing him positively,” he explains. “That is a danger sign for the president and for the Republican Party more generally. When you have individuals who otherwise would be supportive of a Republican president jumping off the ship, these are the things to worry about as you are sort of gearing up for a midterm election.”
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Trump is also floundering on the issues. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that only 17 percent of voters (including a minority of Republicans) approve of Trump’s handling of the cost of living crisis, a consistent complaint that’s reflected in poll after poll. Only 34 percent of voters approve of Trump’s strikes against Iran, and a whopping 82 percent of voters aren’t buying Trump’s claims that the war is about to end, believing it will instead continue for an “extended period of time.”
Trump’s polling freefall is having a ripple effect on Republicans running for office in the midterms. A new NPR/Marist poll showed that across the board, voters would rather elect a Democrat to Congress over a Republican, by almost 12 percentage points. The poll showed issue-by-issue results similar to what was reflected in the Reuters and CNN polls, further reinforcing that Trump’s massive mishandling of basically every facet of American life — the economy in particular — has hurt the chances of every candidate with an R by their name.
“One of the ways you can get at whether or not this is going to be important is to look at enthusiasm,” Nteta says of Trump’s impact on the midterms. “What we’ve found is a clear enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans about voting in the midterm elections.”
Nteta points out that the reverse was true ahead of the 2024 election, as Republicans were geared up to put Trump back into office, believing he could turn the economy around. “Now, the shoe is on the other foot,” Nteta says, “and Democrats recognize the opportunities that they have in places that even a year ago it would have been crazy to think they could compete in.”
But even a wounded Republican Party is not without teeth. Last week, several Democratic consultants and strategists told Rolling Stone that there was a “sense of nervousness” around the midterms, despite the sizable polling lead. The GOP has far more cash on hand and is planning an advertising blitz in the coming weeks, hoping to buoy support in specific races even if they can’t escape the nationwide taint of Trump’s second term. Still, Democrats think that the tangible effects of Trump’s war with the U.S. economy are going to shine through.
