Trump at 39% in Latest Reuters Poll
Getting close to his term 1 low.
Via Reuters: Exclusive: Trump approval falls to lowest of his term over prices and Epstein files, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds.
Trump started his second term in office with 47% of Americans giving him a thumbs up. The nine-point decline since January leaves his overall popularity near the lows seen during his first term in office, and close to the weakest ratings for his Democratic predecessor in the White House, Joe Biden. Biden’s approval rating sank as low as 35% while Trump’s first-term popularity fell as low as 33%.
Funny, when you promise to fix prices and don’t, just telling people how Walmart’s Thanksgiving bundle is cheaper (and smaller) than last year doesn’t cut it.
Just 26% of Americans say Trump is doing a good job at managing the cost of living, down from 29% earlier this month. The pace of inflation has remained high by historic standards since Trump took office in January. U.S. consumer prices were up 3% in the 12 months through September, even as the job market has weakened. Some 65% of respondents – including one in three Republicans – disapprove of Trump’s performance on the cost of living.
Note that his supposed strengths were immigration and the economy, but he is down in both areas.
And then there’s the Epstein of it all.
Only 20% of Americans – including just 44% of Republicans – approve of how Trump has handled the Epstein case, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. Some 70% of poll respondents – including 87% of Democrats and 60% of Republicans – said they believe the government is hiding information about Epstein’s clients.
The stock market analogue to the Trump approval rating is Trump Media and Technology Group (DJT). Home of Truth Social (which Trump corruptly exclusively uses for taxpayer paid public communication), it is YTD down 68.42%.
Marist Poll just out.
A Look to the 2026 Midterms, November 2025
My summary: Everybody hates both parties.
But in terms of concerns:
39%….still seems too high for a rational, decent country.
Note that the only area of the economy keeping the US out of a recession is the development of technology to eliminate all jobs. And the only saving grace is that it very likely won’t be able to.
@Charley in Cleveland:
It wouldn’t even be unpresidented for him to go much lower. Several past presidents have gone to the 20s (on Gallup at least, that’s the one where we have the most publicly available info)–Truman, Nixon, Carter, both Bushes at certain points. Trump seems to have a stubbornly high floor in his approval ratings. But also a low ceiling–he and Biden are the only two presidents to never have reached 60% on Gallup.
He’s also been at this relatively low level before and bounced back. He isn’t immune to political damage, but so far he does seem immune to permanent damage. He’s Daffy always getting duck season, but always back for the next round.
@Kylopod:
A lot of that is polarization–it has become harder to get one’s own side to dissaprove.
I would have to look, but I think the current trend started with Obama.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I would agree. Compared to his predecessors, Obama did seem to have a high floor and low ceiling, though his range was broader than Trump’s or Biden’s. In any case, it was a stark contrast with Dubya, who was in the 90s just after 9/11 and in the high 20s to low 30s by the end of his presidency.
I think also that it’s easy to forget about another metric, which is disapproval. High disapproval (above 50%) has become the norm for presidents in the past decade-and-a-half. Even though Trump has never had the lowest approval ratings on record, he is among the most unpopular presidents when it comes to approval-to-disapproval ratio. If anything is a sign of polarization, it is the historically low number of people with no opinion.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Ain’t that that truth! This tribal siloing strikes me as the issue of our time. It makes all the other societal/governmental problems we are facing possible. I don’t think the country holds together without mitigating the polarization.
Good news! He’s below 40% like Schumer has been waiting for! He can start having those insider treadmill conversations he’s been waiting for. Our own 4d chess player.
Somewhat more seriously, I am still somewhere between appalled and depressed that what is crushing Trump is the rather nebulous Epstein cesspool, and not the million things he should be despised (and in jail) for.
@Just Another Ex-Republican: I think the Epstein issue is an easy out for disillusioned maga. Face saving.
@Scott: I really wonder what similar polling for Hitler would have looked like at different points in his career.
Modern polling just has no long term historical context.
Were there pundits in 1944 Germany saying the administration needed to focus more on affordability and bread and butter issues?
It’s so bad, even Rasmussen was him underwater.
Wait. that doesn’t seem right.
It’s so good, even Rasmussen has him underwater.
Yeah, that’s much better.
On the Epstein files, The Guardian adds a caveat to the release as follows:
Emphasis added.
This would mean the MAGAt base won’t get to hear or see anything about Bill, Hunter, and other Democrats.
No Republiqans and no Tacos are being investigated.
Will they blunder that bad? Probably not. More likely El Taco will brag that what they can’t show about Democrats is a trillion times worse.
@Gustopher: In Jan. 1934, Der Galupf releases a poll showing that the Fuhrer gets positive marks on handling of the economy, middling marks on putting the Jews in their place, and negative marks on handling of the Reichstag fire.
On Feb. 1934, despite assurances that the respondents to the poll were all Aryan, the head of Der Galupf is arrested and sent to a camp.
According to Trading Economics, the annual “inflation Rate in the United States averaged 3.29 percent from 1914 until 2025”. That makes the current rate slightly below average. Trump is a victim of his own dishonest propaganda in three respects:
• He refused to acknowledge that inflation had returned to a historically normal rate by the end of 2023, persisting in making the non-existent “sky-high inflation” one of his major campaign themes;
• He repeatedly made the foolish promise to bring prices down, which any economist could have told him would only be possible if he presided over a serious depression;
• He has claimed again and again this year that prices have come down. Only his core supporters have attained the Orwellian condition of refusing to believe their own eyes and ears if the party commands otherwise.
It’s nice to see him hoist on his own petard. Hopefully Democrats will concentrate on attacking his lies and broken promises but refrain from making any of their own.
@Kylopod:
Stalin had census officials killed because they reported a lower population than he wanted.
@Ken_L:
He could bring prices down by decreeing a maximum profit margin for all industries and commerce. Or instituting price controls This would massively upset the donor class. I’ve no idea if it would cause an economic depression, but I see it might. One thing price controls tend to cause is scarcity and shortages.
Of course, he was lying through his dentures.
But a lot of people believed him. And now they are as disappointed as the kid who met Santa and found he was old, fat, and smelled of reindeer sh*t.
@Kathy:
I think that’s very unlikely as a matter of both legality and practicality. Nixon imposed 90-day price (not profit margin) caps on food and gas, but I’m not sure a president today could get away with it for 90 days, let alone four years. Trying to determine the profit margins firms were getting on individual goods and services would be a nightmare.
@Ken_L:
Agreed, but there’s really no other way to lower prices. Either cap margins or cap prices.
Or, if it’s a certain type of product, set up government operated non-profit shops that 1) can compel a lower purchase price from producers and distributors, and 2) sells with minimal markup t the public (just enough to make expenses and overhead), Say for grocery stores.
Of course, that would be SOCIALISM!!111!!111111111
@Charley in Cleveland:
That’s my take too.
The 39-40% is mostly MAGA hardcore, so not much changes now. However … the Epstein ‘situation’ is probably going to drag his numbers further down.
These numbers are starting to matter to many individual Republican legislators ahead of the 2026 midterm election campaign season, especially where Trump won their district or state by 10 points or less. If polling numbers descend into below 30% then I think we’re going to see rats jumping off those MAGA yachts anchored out in Mar-a-Lago Bay.