Trump’s New Record Has Nothing to Do With Crowds
Donald Trump now holds a record that has nothing to do with crowd sizes, electoral math, or anything else he loves to brag about. According to the RealClearPolitics polling average, his disapproval rating just hit 58.3 percent. That is higher than it ever climbed after he urged a mob to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Higher than at any moment of his first term. Higher than at any moment of this one.
The new low, which sits 18.5 points underwater per that same RealClearPolitics aggregate, did not arrive on a single bad headline. It arrived through a slow, steady accumulation of choices voters across the political spectrum have stopped tolerating.
Every one of the 21 most recent major polls tracked by RealClearPolitics shows his disapproval at 55 percent or higher, according to The Daily Beast. Fox News and Reuters/Ipsos surveys released in the past week both put the number above 60. When even Fox cannot scrape together a friendly crosstab, the floor has fallen out.
The slide started in earnest on Feb. 28, the day the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran. Within weeks, Tehran shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the maritime corridor that carries roughly 20 percent of the world’s seaborne oil, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Crude prices spiked past $100 a barrel. We paid an average of $4.55 a gallon at the pump on the Friday before Memorial Day, according to AAA, more than 50 percent higher than the day before the war began.
And the pain is not confined to gas. The University of Michigan’s May consumer sentiment survey, as reported by CNN, found our year ahead inflation expectations climbed to 4.8 percent, while five-year expectations jumped to 3.9 percent from 3.5 percent the month prior. Translation: we are not just paying more this week. We are bracing to pay more for years.
A president genuinely curious about why his numbers keep sinking might be tempted to listen. Instead, Trump told reporters last week he is not thinking about our financial situation. “Not even a little bit,” he said. He has called the cost of gas “peanuts.” On May 19, he stood in front of the demolished East Wing showing off plans for a new $1 billion White House ballroom and said, “I appreciate everyone putting up with it for a little while; it won’t be much longer.”
Seven in 10 of us told pollsters we feel either “angry” or “frustrated” about his handling of the economy, according to a survey released Tuesday and cited by The Daily Beast. That number does not break neatly along party lines. It is bigger than his coalition. It is bigger than the people who voted against him in 2024. It is the country.
That matters because the math is now ugly enough to reshape November. A Reuters/Ipsos poll reported by Al Jazeera found Democrats far more enthusiastic about voting in 2026 than Republicans, 44 percent to 26 percent. Every seat in the House and 35 in the Senate are up next year. A president sitting 18.5 points underwater is not just a polling story. It is a tailwind for whoever is paying attention.
For us, the question is no longer whether Trump notices the squeeze. He has told us he doesn’t, repeatedly, on camera. The question is what we plan to do about it. Polls do not change policy. Votes do. And we have one shot, in less than six months, to make 58.3 percent mean something more than a number on a chart. Go beyond the headlines…
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