Trump Polling Much Stronger Than Europe’s Political Leaders

President Trump’s approval rating has been in the negatives since mid-March, though it has recovered from a second-term low of -13.1, shortly after the government shutdown ended, to a current -8.2. However, while Trump’s numbers are negative, European leaders are faring far worse.

Even Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, the European leader with the highest rating tracked by YouGov polling, has just 35% favorability and a -21 net favorability rating. Trump, meanwhile, has a 43.3% favorability rating and 53.4% unfavorability in the RealClearPolitics Average.

The worst-performing leaders are United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who have favorability ratings of just 17% and 16%, respectively. Germany’s Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has only 25% favorability and 69% unfavorable ratings.

That places these leaders below the least popular branch of the U.S. government, the Congress, which has 22.3% approval and 68% disapproval in the latest RCP average.

Unsurprisingly, with such dismal favorability ratings, opposition parties in these European countries are gaining in the polls.

In Germany, the right-wing Alternative for Germany party now tops the polls at 26%, closely followed by Merz’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, at 25%. In Germany’s February 2025 elections, the AfD received 21% of the vote, while the CDU received 29%.

In the UK, Starmer became prime minister after the July 2024 elections, in which his Labour Party received 34% of the vote, the Conservative Party received 24%, and Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s new right-wing party, received 14%. In current polling, Reform UK leads with 28%, followed by Conservatives at 18% and Labour at 16%.

France’s parties have not undergone a total realignment, as the largest parties, the right-wing National Rally and the left-wing New Popular Front, are polling similarly to the July 2024 legislative elections. However, Macron’s governing coalition, Ensemble, has fallen from 23% to 15%, while the center-right Republicans party has risen from 5% to 12%.

Even Trump’s -8.3 net job approval rating suggests Republicans are likely to lose the House in the midterms. In the RCP Average for the Generic Congressional Vote, Republicans trail Democrats by 4 points. Since 2002, the RCP Average for the Generic Congressional Vote on Election Day has incorrectly predicted control of the House only once, in 2016, making it a historically reliable statistic.

This deficit, combined with the fact that the party holding the presidency has won the House in the midterms only once since 1982, in 2002, makes a Republican victory a long shot. Betting markets likewise indicate a low probability of a Republican win in the House in 2026, at 24%.