Copyright Newsweek
U.S. President Donald Trump's approval rating has been "in a free fall" for weeks, pollster Nate Silver has said. Writing in his Substack blog, Silver Bulletin, the statistician and political analyst said Trump's net approval rating is now at "the lowest it's been during his second term." Newsweek reached out to the White House by email outside of normal business hours for comment. Why It Matters Approval ratings are useful in gauging the mood of the nation and the public's response to Trump's policies. On November 4, there were a series of elections across the country in which Democrats made a number of gains in key seats including the New York City mayoral election, where Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani defeated independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. These election results have concerned the GOP ahead of future votes. What To Know Silver, who founded 538, a website that offers opinion poll analysis, said that Trump's net approval rating has declined from -7.5 percentage points on October 19 to -13 points on November 8. He added that the proportion of Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump hit a second-term high of 45 percent and that finding "means Trump is once again less popular than Joe Biden was at this point in his term." He said that at the same point, Biden's net approval rating was at -8.3 percentage points. However, he said Trump's approval rating was about 5 points higher than it was at the same point in his first term. "Donald Trump's approval rating has been in free fall since last October," Silver wrote. It follows other negative approval rating polls. A recent poll by The Economist/YouGov found Trump’s approval rating at its lowest level since he returned to office in January, with 39 percent of people saying they approved of the job he is doing, while 58 percent disapproved, resulting in a net approval rating of -19 points. According to Rasmussen Reports, a pollster that has been accused of leaning toward Republican candidates but claims to be independent, Trump's net approval rating is -8 percentage points. As per their tracker, this is the president's lowest approval rating since his second term started in January. Meanwhile, according to RealClearPolitics, which aggregates several polls, the president's net approval rating is at -8.9 percentage points, the lowest in his second term so far, as per the website's tracker. What People Are Saying President Donald Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social on Monday: "So many Fake Polls are being shown by the Radical Left Media, all slanted heavily toward Democrats and Far Left Wingers … Fake News will never change, they are evil and corrupt but, as I look around my beautiful surroundings, I say to myself, 'Oh, look, I’m sitting in the Oval Office!'" Thomas Gift, associate professor of political science previously told Newsweek: "It’s hard to look at the shutdown and not see it weighing on Trump’s polling. Even if voters are frustrated with Democrats as well, prolonged dysfunction rarely benefits anyone politically. Government shutdowns tend to reinforce the sense that Washington is broken—and while both sides may take heat, the president typically bears the brunt of the blame." Harry Enten, CNN's chief data analyst, recently said Trump's approval rating is "down there with the Titanic." What Happens Next As his presidency continues, Trump's popularity will likely fluctuate. Whether his low approval ratings affect the GOP's performance in upcoming elections, including the November 2026 midterms, remains to be seen.
