Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped to new lows for his second term.
The percentage of voters who say they support the job Trump has done since returning to the White House has dropped again in a Quinnipiac University poll. Released earlier this week, the survey also found that a higher percentage of Americans than ever before say that Israel is committing a genocide, including more than seven in ten Democrats.
37 percent of American registered voters approve of the president’s job performance to date. A much larger share, 55 percent, disapprove.
But the big news for the president is a three-point drop in his approval rating in just a month. Fueled by a drop among Republican voters, the poll is a sign that Trump’s own MAGA base, reinvigorated in 2024, is now chipping away under continued pressure from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the administration’s ongoing frustrations as it pertains to Trump’s promise to stop the bloodshed in Gaza.
A total of 84 percent of Republican voters said they approved of the job Trump was doing, compared to 90 percent who said the same in Quinnipiac’s July poll. Over that same period, Trump’s approval rating among independents ticked up one point, though that finding is within the margin of error.
On issue-based polling, Trump also suffered small losses of support for his handling of the economy, trade, and the Israeli siege of Gaza. Over July-August, he gained support, however, for his work to end the war in Ukraine; Trump met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin earlier this month, before sitting down with European leaders, including Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, upon his return to Washington.
Meanwhile, Trump’s attempts to impose military occupations on Democrat-run cities are hurting his image on crime — typically one of his stronger issues. According to August’s poll, the president is now underwater on this issue with 54 percent disapproving of his crimefighting strategy and 42 percent supporting him. That finding is likely a result of a constant flood of images coming out of Washington, D.C. showing deployed National Guard troops from the District and around the country milling about high-tourism areas and snapping selfies with visitors.
Elsewhere in the city, D.C. residents have ganged up in shows of furious opposition to the takeover of their city, resulting in large crowds hurling abuse at federal law enforcement agents and Guard members as the city endures roadside ICE checkpoints and patrols that have slowed foot traffic to District-area businesses to a crawl.
On the issue of the D.C. takeover specifically, 41 percent of voters support the measure while 56 percent oppose it.
The president’s sinking approval ratings are a warning flag for congressional Republicans as they rocket towards the new year, especially given the already unlikely prospect of the narrow Republican majorities in either the House or Senate being able to pass any kind of meaningful legislation before midterm election season begins.
On that same theme, there were reasons for the GOP to celebrate. Congressional Democrats registered about half the popularity of their marginally less disliked Republican counterparts. Seventeen percent of voters approved of Democrats in Congress, to 33 percent who approved of Republicans’ job performance, in the July survey. The job approval ratings of Congress weren’t included in Quinnipiac’s latest round.
Trump’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation remains one of his lowest points in issue-based polling. 67 percent of voters said they disapproved of the way the Trump administration was handling the investigation, after promising repeatedly to release more files from the probe, including evidence tying Epstein to other powerful men. Less than 20 percent approve. The share of voters who specifically blamed the Justice Department and accused the DoJ of not being transparent on the issue was even higher, at 73 percent.
The polling shows a string of clear dangers for Republicans. A continued stalemate in Ukraine-Russia peace talks met with silence from the White House, the duplication of Trump’s D.C. takeover to cities in other jurisdictions (especially swing states), or a downturn in the economy could put the GOP in a very tight spot as the party faces an extremely tough road to protecting its congressional majorities in the months ahead.
Quinnipiac’s poll surveyed 1,220 registered voters between August 21-25. The survey’s margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.
