President Donald Trump is brushing off a worsening Trump approval rating even as new polling shows it sinking into the 30s and his party’s anxiety over November grows louder. He says his numbers are fantastic and lashes out at anyone who shows otherwise.
Trump also seems indifferent to the broader mood around him. The primary article says Americans think the economy is terrible, yet he keeps talking as if the country is on his side, repeating that when people hear him say his poll numbers are good, everybody agrees.
The numbers tell a different story. Gallup said Trump’s overall approval rating fell to 36 percent this month, the lowest point of either Trump term except the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021. That slide is colliding with a public that is also rejecting some of his most visible priorities: two-thirds oppose his gold-plated ballroom, and he wants to build a gargantuan arch in Virginia.
One reason the drop matters now is that it is feeding Republican fears about what comes next. The article links Trump’s low standing to concern over congressional races in November, and his latest moves are not calming those nerves. Instead, they are adding to the sense that he is pressing ahead with his own agenda while political support narrows around him.
That tension is clearest in the Justice Department’s announcement of a $1.8 billion slush fund for supporters of Trump who say the government was mean to them. The fund includes people who rampaged through the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the idea drew an unusually blunt rebuke from Sen. Mitch McConnell, who asked, “So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?” and called it “Utterly stupid, morally wrong — take your pick.”
Republican senators were “incredibly hostile” when Blanche met with them to talk about the plan, according to Punchbowl’s Andrew Desiderio. One Republican senator told him, “Our majority is melting down before our eyes,” a line that captured how far the issue has spread beyond the usual intraparty grumbling.
Trump has kept punishing Republicans who break with him. He has purged state senators in Indiana who declined his order to redraw their congressional maps. He has purged Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana after Cassidy voted to remove him after Jan. 6, and he has purged Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky after Massie helped force the release of the Epstein files. In the latest move mentioned in the article, Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The polling weakness is especially stark among younger men. In fall 2024, Trump was polling 7 points ahead of Kamala Harris on the economy with men under 30. This year, ’s Harry Enten said Trump’s net approval rating on the economy with that group is -59 points, a turnaround of 66 points in less than two years. Enten said he was laughing because “the turn is so absurd,” and added, “Fifty-four points underwater—Jacques Cousteau never got that low,” after noting Trump’s foreign policy approval among men under 30 fell from +9 against Harris to -54 overall this year.
The close is simple enough: Trump is not just taking a hit in the polls, he is acting like those polls do not matter, and that is leaving Republicans to absorb the political damage. A president can survive bad numbers for a while. What he cannot do forever is keep losing public support while treating the loss as proof he is winning.
