March 6: Trump Job Approval Again Underwater, Where It Belongs
As an inveterate poll-watcher, I have been waiting for the moment when Donald Trump’s job approval numbers went underwater, his accustomed position for nearly all of his presidential career. It arrived around the time he made his speech to Congress, as I noted at New York:
Even as he was delivering the most partisan address to Congress maybe ever, Donald Trump’s public support seemed to be regularly eroding. An updated FiveThirtyEight average of Trump’s approval ratings on March 4 (released just as news broke that ABC was shutting down the revered data site) showed him going underwater for the first time since reoccupying the White House, with 47.6 percent approval and 47.9 percent disapproval. That puts Trump back in the same territory of public opinion he occupied during his first term as president, where (per Gallup) he never achieved more than 50 percent job approval, and averaged a mere 41 percent.
Perhaps Trump will get lucky and conditions in the country will improve enough to validate his agenda, but it’s more likely that the same sour public climate that overwhelmed Joe Biden will now afflict his predecessor and successor.
The Reuters/Ipsos survey that pushed Trump’s numbers into negative territory showed a mood very different from the 47th president’s boasts about a new “golden age” for our country:
“Thirty-four percent of Americans say that the country is headed in the right direction, compared to 49% who say it is off on the wrong track. When it comes to several specific issues, Americans are more likely to say things are off on the wrong track than going in the right direction: cost of living (22% right direction / 60% wrong track), the national economy (31% right direction / 51% wrong track), national politics (33% right direction / 50% wrong track), American foreign policy (33% right direction / 49% wrong track), and employment and jobs (33% right direction / 47% wrong track).”
So all the hype about Trump being a popular president who was in the midst of engineering a major realignment of the American electorate is already looking more than a bit hollow. Trump has a solid Republican base of support and a solid Democratic opposition, with independents currently leaning towards the Democratic Party on most issues. Perhaps Trump’s agenda will gain momentum and support, but since he’s not trying to reach out beyond his party’s base at all, he’s going to need a lift from Americans who only voted for him in 2024 as the lesser of evils and may not vote in the 2026 midterms at all.
At present Trump has lost whatever presidential “honeymoon” he initially enjoyed after his return to the White House, and needs to find new converts to return to genuine popularity. He’s not off to a great start.
The ads were good enough. The rest was unnecessary.
If Democratic strategists want to help this country (and Democrats win) they should stop pitting progressives and minorities against the White working class, or college educated against uneducated. Its doing Trump/Republicans/Russians work for them helping to keep these divisions alive in the U.S.
If Democratic strategists don’t want these voters to be thought of as a monolithic group then they should stop talking like they are and leave race out of the conversation. They could also not tag Americans who check the White box along with all of the “persuadable” voter bullet points listed in this Memo as the description of a Trump voter. Its insulting and another way the Democratic Party is participating in softening and normalizing Trump, Republicans and White Nationalism.
The reasons these ads won’t be shown is because the elites that dominate the party won’t identify with them. Politicians won’t understand the message and consultants won’t see a reason to explain it and create more work for themselves.
The party elites are unwilling to identify to mobilize the working class, regardless of whether it is the white working class in Republican and moderate areas or the Black and Hispanic working class in our Blue cities and in Red States.
Decisions over campaign strategy are too corrupted by self interested consultants who can manage to make the most money with the least effort.