Donald Trump’s approval rating has sunk to Joe Biden’s lowest point

This week Mr Trump’s net approval hit -23 percentage points among all Americans and -19 among registered voters.

BEYOND HIS loyal, red-capped base, Donald Trump has never been especially popular. Our tracker of polling data from YouGov shows that, across both his terms in office, he has spent only eight weeks with more Americans approving of his performance than disapproving. Even so, the latest numbers should worry both Mr Trump and Republicans heading into November’s midterm elections.

US President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a televised address on the conflict in the Middle East from the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington, DC. (AFP)

This week Mr Trump’s net approval hit -23 percentage points among all Americans and -19 among registered voters. That is worse than the president’s previous low of -21 in 2017, and roughly matches Joe Biden’s nadir after his disastrous debate performance in 2024, when many Americans concluded he was unfit for office.

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Sampling noise can produce one-off readings: a bad week may reflect who answers the phone when called by pollsters, for example, rather than the mood of the country. But Mr Trump’s slide has persisted for months—his smoothed average is -20, with no sign of a rebound.Mr Trump may have hoped for a war bounce. Conflicts can boost approval ratings, if only for a short time: both Bush presidents enjoyed double-digit rises early in their Middle Eastern wars. Mr Trump repeatedly suggested that Barack Obama, then president, might attack Iran to boost his popularity ahead of the 2012 election. Unfortunately for the current president, his war with Iran seems to have had the opposite effect.

Some 59% of adults say they oppose the conflict. Even 24% of Republicans are against it. Approval of Mr Trump’s handling of the war is falling, and with petrol prices above $4 a gallon, opposition may grow. Moreover, Mr Trump’s problems are not confined to events overseas. Our tracker shows that he is underwater across every demographic group and on all the most important issues.

Exactly how badly this will hurt Republicans in November is hard to gauge. But the incumbent party almost always loses seats in midterm elections, and the scale of losses tends to correlate with the president’s approval rating. Most pundits expect the Democrats to take the House. Since the start of the Iran war, bettors have made them narrow favourites for the Senate, too. Mr Trump has left his party exposed.