Trump’s Approval Rating - Then vs. Now

Coming out of Easter weekend, President Trump’s job approval rating in the RCP Average sits at 40.9%, a record low for his second term.

Perhaps even more ominous for the president and the Republican Party, with just seven months until Election Day, his approval rating on the issues voters say matter most to them in the upcoming midterm elections – the economy and inflation – is even lower. Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the economy stands at 37.2%. His approval rating on inflation is 33.2%.

How does this compare to Trump’s popularity during his first term? On April 6, 2018, Trump’s job approval rating stood at roughly the same place: 41.5%. The good news for Republicans at that time was that this number marked a rebound from Trump’s first-term low of 37.4%, recorded on Dec. 10, 2017. The lesson then was that even a uniquely polarizing figure like Donald Trump can recover lost ground with a significant segment of voters. It’s certainly possible he could do it again.

The bad news for the GOP? Trump started his first term with an approval rating of just 44.3%. So he really hadn’t fallen that far. In 2025, after a presidential campaign in which he outperformed expectations – and his previous vote tallies in 2016 – in winning the 2024 popular vote, Trump assumed office experiencing something approaching a traditional “honeymoon” period with voters. Shortly after being inaugurated for the second time, Trump registered a job approval rating of 50.5% – the first time he’d ever broken the 50% mark in the RCP Average. So his relative decline over the first 13 months of his second term has been much more significant. This concern for Republicans is palpable, and little wonder: Democrats picked up 41 House seats in the 2018 midterm elections.

All of this takes place against the backdrop of the current war with Iran – yet another issue where Trump is underwater with voters. Approval of military action against Iran stands at just 39.2%, a decline of more than 3 points in the month since the bombing campaign began. Meanwhile, disapproval has jumped more than 7 points during the same time period, and now sits at 54.9%.

The commander in chief insists (usually, but not always) that the war will be wrapped up in a matter of weeks. Many nervous Republicans are hoping that this is true. The faster they can put war in the rear-view mirror, the sooner they can return to addressing the issues voters say they care most about.