A mere 100 days into Donald Trump’s second presidency, numerous polls and public comments from Republicans show widespread disapproval of his performance.
Some conservative commentators worry that the president’s sinking poll numbers and poor handling of the economy may endanger Republican hopes of holding onto the U.S. House during next year’s midterm elections.
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Bad polling for Trump will likely doom Republicans in 2026
A Fox News poll showed Trump with an approval rating of 44%, a 5% reduction from the right-wing media outlet’s March poll. The poll also showed 71% of voters view the economy poorly and 55% say it’s getting worse for their family, The Hill reported. A separate poll from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill found 51.8% of respondents disapproving of Trump’s handling of the presidency.
A recent poll by the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research found that only 54% of Republicans surveyed said that Trump is focused on the “right priorities.” A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found that only 43% of voters approve of how Trump is handling the economy.
A new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll gave Trump the lowest approval rating of any president’s first 100 days since 1945, ABC News reported. The poll showed 55% disapproving of how Trump is handling his job as president, with only 39% approving. The previous low in approval was the 42% approval rating after Trump’s first 100 days in 2017.
ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll: President Trump has lowest 100-day approval rating in 80 years. Majorities of voters disapprove of many of Trump's policies. (Gary Langer, ABC News) abcnews.go.com/Politics/tru…
— Opinion Today (@opiniontoday.bsky.social) April 26, 2025 at 11:27 PM
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CNN data analyst Harry Enten said that Trump’s declining poll numbers will make it difficult for Republicans to maintain a U.S. House majority over the 2026 midterm elections.
“There is pretty much zero chance, if Donald Trump’s approval rating is 41% in November of 2026, the Republicans have any shot of holding the House of Representatives,” Enten said.
Former U.S. Representative Joe Walsh (R-IL) agreed, saying, “Because of the madness and the chaos and the disaster that is Trump, Democrats are going to be competitive in districts and states this year, next year that we can’t even imagine right now.”
Even Republicans are turning against Trump
Leaked texts from a group chat for ultra-wealthy right-wingers and tech leaders revealed one member, Bryan Goldberg, writing, “I think we – Republicans who supported Trump – are seeing that this is a failed administration.”
Recent interviews with people who voted for Trump in 2024 found them disapproving of his handling of the economy, of the slashes in finances and staffing committed by the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and of his focus on attacking transgender rights and taking over Greenland and the Panama Canal.
Republican strategist Brendan Buck recently said of Trump’s poor polling, “I certainly don’t think it’s going to get better for him anytime soon…. Tariffs are just getting started. This is only going to get worse… Maybe he’ll see some of this [polling] and realize that it shouldn’t, he shouldn’t go forward. But he’s not shown himself to be somebody who, you know, recalibrates.”
Also commenting on the polling, Politico‘s politics bureau chief Jonathan Martin recently said, “These are self-inflicted wounds that Donald Trump has chosen… If he had not done DOGE [the Department of Government Efficiency] and Elon Musk, and if he had not done ‘Liberation Day’ in a tariff regime, think about where his numbers would be today.
MSNBC talk show co-host Jonathan Lemire said, “Trump is underwater on the issues that were supposed to be strengths, like, Americans don’t like how he’s going about some of the immigration and the deportations. Due process, it turns out, a popular thing for most Americans…. This tariff fight has rattled the markets, and if these are eventually implemented here in the weeks ahead, it’s going to raise prices, inflation for everyone, including his own voters.”
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