A fresh look at some recent polls shows that it’s really not 2024 any more, as I noted at New York:

In his description of a new survey from the New York Times–Siena outfit, Nate Cohn nicely sums up a trend every political observer outside the MAGA fever swamps has probably noticed: “The Voters Who Have Taken a U-Turn on Trump.”

“When President Trump took office for his second term one year ago, he was — at least compared with his usual polling — relatively popular.

“His approval rating was above 50 percent, and he had made enormous breakthroughs among groups that have traditionally voted Democratic, like young, nonwhite and lower-turnout voters. It had some of the markings of a potential political realignment …

“The major demographic shifts of the last election have snapped back. In today’s poll, Mr. Trump’s approval rating by demographic group looks almost exactly as it did in Times/Siena polling in the run-up to his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. If anything, young and nonwhite voters are even likelier to disapprove of Mr. Trump than they were then, while he retains most of his support among older and white voters.”

No wonder the president fired off a Truth Social post denouncing the results and threatening to sue the Times. But there was nothing all that startling about the poll. The sources of Trump’s sagging job-approval numbers are sometimes missed by those fixated with looking for defections from his base or “splits” in the Republican Party. The Times-Siena poll shows Trump’s job-approval rating from self-identified Republicans at a robust 86 percent. But among independents, it’s a sour 34 percent, with 48 percent strongly disapproving of his job performance. Similarly, 54 percent of under-30 registered voters and 53 percent of non-white registered voters strongly disapprove of the job the president is doing. Without much question, the same cluster of issues that fed Trump’s strong 2024 performance in such demographic groups is weakening him now, as Cohn notes:

“And over our last two polls, the voters who have soured on Mr. Trump — those who say they voted for him in 2024 but disapprove of him today — have been likeliest to cite an economic issue as the biggest problem facing the country: 44 percent of the Trump defectors cite economic issues, compared with just 24 percent of other voters.

“This is a familiar story. The economy was one of the biggest reasons these same voters flipped to supporting Mr. Trump in the first place. In the last campaign, these voters disapproved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy, said it was the most important issue, and said they thought Mr. Trump would handle the issue well. Today, all of those conditions have flipped, and these voters have as well.”

Trump is now suffering from incumbency at a time when voters remain unhappy with conditions in the country, particularly with respect to the economy and the cost of living. And in the Times-Siena findings, as in other polls, a lot of voters don’t think Trump is paying much attention. A startling 69 percent of under-30 voters and 67 percent of non-white voters, along with 62 percent of self-identified independents, say the president is “generally focused on the wrong issues.” So he’s in a poor position and isn’t helping himself when he launches overseas adventures and interminably celebrates his alleged accomplishments. And even in areas where he has traditionally had robust support, like immigration enforcement, his record is alienating swing voters. Seventy-six percent of under-30 registered voters, 73 percent of non-white registered voters, and 71 percent of self-identified independents say ICE tactics have “gone too far.”

All these numbers track recent polling trends that have been in place for months. And the story is quite familiar. According to the Silver Bulletin averages, Trump’s net job-approval rating is currently minus-13.9 percent. That’s squarely between the minus-12.2 percent approval Joe Biden had at this point in his presidency and the minus-16.6 percent Trump himself posted at this point in his first term. In 2018, Trump lost control of the House, as did Biden in 2022. Trump will turn 80 before the midterms; Biden turned 80 shortly thereafter. In the newly released Silver Bulletin generic congressional ballot averages, Democrats currently have a 5.3 percent advantage (it’s at 4.6 percent at RealClearPolitics and 4.9 percent at Decision Desk HQ). They need a net gain of just three seats to flip control of the U.S. House. According to the ratings by the authoritative Cook Political Report, the House landscape is beginning to tilt blue: Of 18 races rated as “toss-ups,” 14 are for seats now held by Republicans. Particularly now that Trump’s gerrymandering drive appears to have been largely and perhaps completely countered by Democrats, it won’t take much of a breeze to wreck the presidential party’s current trifecta in Washington.

So it’s a bad sign for Trump that his winning 2024 coalition is showing definite and persistent signs of shrinking back to its pre-2024 shape and dimensions. He can rage against “fake polls” all he wants. But it’s not looking good for the 47th president in November.