“Trump’s approval plunges into the 20s, and Republicans give up,” Max Burns reports at The Hill. Further, “It was received wisdom during President Trump’s first term that his hard floor of support sat somewhere around one-third of Americans. Those were the MAGA true believers, the die-hards, the folks who stood in line for hours to attend their fifth Trump rally of the year. That rule of thumb proved to be true. Trump’s approval was still hovering in the 40s before ending around 34 percent on Jan. 4, 2021…Whatever truths we can glean from Trump’s trainwreck of a second term, it is clear the MAGA base is now deserting him in record numbers…An American Research Group poll published this week found Trump’s approval at just 29 percent — a new low for his presidency and a flashing warning sign for the congressional Republicans being dragged beneath the waves by the president’s plummeting popularity…What is surprising are the circumstances of Trump’s collapse. The economy is certainly in better shape than it was during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when Trump’s approval sat in the 40s. Last month’s 3.5 percent inflation rate is bad but well below its peak. Perhaps, more than high gas and grocery prices, Americans have just had enough of politicians who don’t seem to care about their problems…It is one thing for angry voters to hear Democrats complaining about Republican inaction on inflation. It’s quite another to hear a prominent Republican tell voters in no uncertain terms that the Republican Party just doesn’t care enough about them to address skyrocketing prices. Sure, your nearly $5 a gallon gas may be demolishing your family budget, but don’t expect your Republican elected leaders to lift a finger to help.” More here.

The Working Class Project reports that “The Working Class Are Turning On Trump And Republicans” and notes:  “Earlier this month, we launched a new survey of working class voters across the battleground, part of our longitudinal look at how these voters are shifting. We’ve been talking to these voters since the start of 2025, tracking their movements on key issues and how they’re feeling about Donald Trump, Republicans, and Democrats heading into November. The poll, conducted in September by GBAO, surveyed 1,000 registered working class voters. This group voted Trump +7 in 2024, but our findings point to increasing unpopularity for Trump and Republicans among these voters — a hopeful sign for Democrats, if they can capitalize on this movement in the final stretch in the midterms…Key Findings

• Across almost every measure, the environment has worsened for Trump and improved for Democrats.
• Democrats are leading on the generic ballot +5, up from -2 in April last year.
• Democratic messaging consistently performs better than Republican messaging, with voters more worried about Republicans’ failure on lowering costs or reigning in corruption than culture-war attacks on issues like the border and transgender athletes.
• Working class messaging focusing on costs, hard work, or corruption all have broader appeal than either blowing up the system or being a moderate.” More here.

From “Transcript: Trump Hits Record Poll Low amid Fresh Leaks of GOP Panic. As GOP panic intensifies over Trump’s cratering numbers, a veteran Democratic strategist in North Carolina explains why Trump is so toxic among independents—and why he’s plummeting in red areas, too” by Greg Sargent at The New Republic: “We’ve been talking a lot about the polling on here because it’s crunch time now, and we’ve got some really striking new data to look at. Donald Trump’s approval just hit another record low in the polls. On the Iran war, he’s absolutely collapsed, and his tariffs are in deep trouble too. Meanwhile, Republican leaks are getting worse. Operatives are privately admitting that the bottom is falling out for the party. So here’s our question: Is it really this bad for Trump and Republicans, or is it a mirage that will soon get swamped by GOP spending?…To figure it out, we’re talking to veteran North Carolina Democratic operative Morgan Jackson, who’s on the Roy Cooper campaign, about what he’s seeing on the ground. Morgan, thanks for coming on…Sargent: So let’s start here. A new Reuters poll finds Trump’s approval nationally down at 32 percent. That’s a record low in Reuters polling for Trump’s two terms. I don’t know if it’s that low, Morgan, but the FiftyPlusOne polling averages have him at 35 percent. So it’s plausible that he’s heading down into the low thirties. Morgan, what’s your sense of where the president really is right now?…Jackson: So I think first and foremost, Greg, the president is in trouble, and he’s dragging down every Republican on the ballot. What we’re seeing, and I think what we see at every date—and the president was just here in North Carolina campaigning. And look at the kind of things that follow the president here.” More here.

In “It’s “Underwear on the Outside” Time,” Paul Krugman writes at his blog: “There’s a high probability that Trump’s power will be considerably reduced in the aftermath of the November midterms. Polls point to a blue wave that is highly likely to give Democrats control of the House and more likely than not to deliver the Senate. If that blue wave does indeed materialize, I expect that there will be an enormous sigh of relief across the country because it will be a major, if not fatal, setback for Trumpism…However, we shouldn’t let the short-term relief of a November victory blind us to the long-term realities. Trumpism did not emerge out of thin air – that is, an unfortunate draw of the democracy cards. Instead Trump and Trumpism is the culmination of a decades-long threat to American democracy, to the moral, legal and social fiber of this country…There is a straight line from Koch Brothers money, allied with segregationists and religious fundamentalists, that runs through the Federalist Society and the Roberts Supreme Court, through the MAGA-fied Republican Party, through the crypto-industry and the tech-broligarchy, that leads to Trump. And it will take a single-minded, fearless and incorruptible new generation of Democrats to defeat this many-headed hydra…We should also recognize that Mad King Donald will still retain a great deal of power even with a Democratic Congress. He won’t feel that he has failed America, he will believe that America has failed him and try to punish the nation accordingly. Thus he will use his remaining power vindictively not just against the victorious Democrats, but also against the American people…And if Democrats win the White House in 2028, they will inherit a badly damaged nation.” More here.