At a White House event a couple of months ago, Donald Trump expressed a sentiment he has rarely shared, saying, “It just amazes me that there’s not more support out there.”
The moment of candor was striking, largely for its rarity. The president generally prefers brazen dishonesty, routinely boasting about his imagined popularity and even thanking the American public for loving him with such broad intensity.
But in late February, the mask slipped, and the president implicitly acknowledged the truth, though it was packaged in incredulity: Trump may not have understood why he’s so unpopular, but he was at least somewhat aware of the fact that he is unpopular.
If the Republican was amazed two months ago, he must be absolutely gobsmacked now.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, for example, found the president’s approval rating at just 36%, which was roughly in line with the latest NBC News survey. For the White House, the Associated Press’ latest national poll was even worse. From the AP’s report:
President Donald Trump’s approval rating on the economy has slumped over the past month as the Iran war drives prices higher, according to a new AP-NORC poll, with even Republicans showing less faith in his leadership.
The findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research show a president who is struggling with unfulfilled promises to tame inflation and testing Americans’ patience with a conflict in the Middle East that has dragged on longer than expected.
Trump’s overall approval rating in the AP poll was just 33%, which is dreadful but not the worst part of the survey data: Only 32% approve of the president’s handling of the war in Iran; only 30% approve of his handling of the economy; and only 23% approve of Trump’s efforts to address the cost of living.
For months, there’s been talk in political circles over where Trump’s “floor” is. It’s widely assumed that the president has core supporters who will literally never turn against him under any circumstances. No matter how badly the president fails, he can take solace in knowing that his approval rating won’t completely collapse.
The question, however, was where that floor stood, and the AP poll suggests it’s time to reassess earlier assumptions about how just how low his support can go. (The New York Times’ averages based on data from publicly available national surveys shows Trump’s approval at 38%, while his disapproval stands at 58%. Both represent the worst of the Republican’s second term.)
There’s a school of thought that suggests the focus on Trump’s approval rating is misplaced, since he can’t run for a third term and will almost certainly never appear on a ballot again.
The trouble with that perspective is that congressional Republicans are preparing for a midterm elections cycle as the American electorate turns sharply against a GOP president — whom those same congressional Republicans have championed since his return to power.
Indeed, the lower Trump support sinks, the more the party confronts a question about what to do with reality-based data: Do they take new, sizable steps to distance themselves from a failing and woefully unpopular president, or do they continue to carry Trump’s water and take their chances with a dissatisfied electorate?
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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