How Americans Are Grading Trump’s Second Term (So Far)

Two months into Trump’s second term, Americans are beginning to render their initial judgments on his performance. While they do like some of his early moves, he’s generally trending in the wrong direction. The honeymoon period he enjoyed back in January is starting to fade, as some who may have been undecided about him or initially given him the benefit of the doubt are now turning on him.

Of course, it’s still early. Historically, most presidents who experienced a dip at the beginning of a term have managed to work their way back into positive territory later on. But there’s reason to be skeptical that this will happen for Trump.

First, let’s take a look at how Trump’s overall approval rating has changed since he took office two months ago. According to Nate Silver’s aggregator, Trump began his second term with an approval rating of 51.6 percent and a disapproval rating of 40 percent, good for a net approval of +11.6 points. Since then, however, those figures have inverted, with his approval rating dropping four points to 47.6 percent and his disapproval rating jumping nearly ten points to 49.4 percent.

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This shift has left Trump’s net approval underwater at -1.8 points as of this week, good for a total swing of -13.4 points. In a vacuum, this net figure still may not sound dire: the country is split more or less evenly in how it views his performance so far. But this belies the broader context of his political standing.

Trump’s 47.6 percent approval rating 64 days into his term is lower than for any other president in the modern polling era¹ except for one: himself, in his first term, when it stood at just 42.1 percent. Moreover, his average approval rating sunk below 50 percent just 12 days into his second term and has only continued ticking down since then. The next-closest president, Gerald Ford, made it 55 days before the effects of his pardon of Richard Nixon pushed him below 50 percent. Even Joe Biden, who ended as one of the least popular presidents ever, went 208 days before seeing his approval first decline below that threshold.

Especially concerning for Trump is the constituencies that have been trending away from him since last November, including the working class and independents. In 2024, Trump won non-college voters by a healthy 14-point margin, 56 to 43 percent. Today? He is barely breaking even, with a new Echelon Insights poll showing that gap at just 49 to 48 percent. Similarly, after he became the first Republican nominee on record to win low-income voters—narrowly carrying them by three points—he’s now lagging with them by eight points, 45 to 53 percent. Perhaps the biggest red flag is independents. After winning them by around three points last year, Echelon now shows him in the red by a massive 15 points: 39 to 54 percent.

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So, what are the culprits behind Trump’s downward trajectory? The biggest one appears to be his handling of the economy, which was likely the decisive issue in the 2024 election. AP VoteCast data show that roughly 40 percent of voters identified the economy as the top issue last year, and they broke for Trump over Kamala Harris by a 61–37 margin. Voters in the U.S., as in much of the rest of the world, penalized the incumbent party and handed the keys to their opposition.

But two months in, Americans are already souring on Trump’s approach to addressing the cost of living and inflation. Consider:

• An Ipsos/Reuters poll earlier this month found that just 31 percent approved of his work to lower costs compared to 54 percent who disapproved.

• Another poll from the same tandem showed that Americans believed his moves to shake up the economy were “too erratic” by a margin of 57 to 32 percent.

• A CNN/SSRS poll from around the same time showed that 56 percent of the public disapproved of his handling of the economy—a higher share than at any time in his first term—compared to 44 percent who approved, and an even lower 39 percent supported his moves on tariffs.

• Just 36–37 percent approve of how Trump has handled trade with Mexico and Canada compared to 56–58 percent who disapprove, according to Quinnipiac. A separate poll similarly found that half of the country is “strongly against” raising tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturing compared to just 34 percent who were “strongly in favor.”

• The share of Americans saying they expect the economy to be in bad shape a year from now has ticked up seven points since January, per NBC.

Trump’s low standing on the economy is not just worse than it was at any point in his first term—his approval on this metric is lower than for any other president in at least the past 30 years.

Then, there’s the work of DOGE. The above Quinnipiac poll found that 60 percent of voters disapprove of the way Elon Musk and his associates are dealing with workers employed by the federal government, compared to just 36 percent who approve. And 54 percent think their work is “hurting the country” versus 40 percent who think it’s helping. Musk’s own image has fared even worse than Trump’s, with just 39 percent of Americans viewing him favorably.

Though Americans generally support the idea of DOGE, many of its proposed cuts to federal agencies and departments are highly unpopular. For example, multiple polls have found that fully 60 percent of Americans oppose eliminating the Department of Education. A separate Economist/YouGov poll showed fully two-thirds believed the size and scope of the department should either be kept the same (27 percent) or expanded (39 percent), while huge majorities said the same about other federal departments and agencies that have been on the chopping block, including the EPA (67 percent), CDC (72 percent), and National Park Service (79 percent).

Beyond DOGE, many of Trump’s other early moves have been on the wrong side of public opinion, too. According to polling from AtlasIntel, one of Nate Silver’s top-rated pollsters, this includes mass firings of federal workers (-9), ending birthright citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally (-16), and trying to take control over the Panama Canal (-11) and Greenland (-32). Americans are also strongly oppose to how Trump has handled the Ukraine-Russia war, including demanding compensation from Ukraine for the war assistance provided so far (-7), excluding a pathway for Ukraine to join NATO (-21), and excluding NATO allies and the European Union (-31) as well as Ukraine (-43) from negotiations with Russia. Meanwhile, the above Economist/YouGov poll showed that fully 43 percent of the country believes Trump’s sympathies lie with Russia compared to 14 percent who said Ukraine.

Trump is also having trouble selling himself as a true champion for the working class. Another YouGov poll found that Americans overwhelmingly believe—by a margin of 87 to 6(!)—that he is looking out for wealthy Americans more than anyone else. Meanwhile, some of the groups that fell far lower down the prioritization latter included union members (43 percent) and non-college Americans (44 percent), both key groups in his coalition. If they feel that they aren’t getting what they bargained for with Trump, his approval rating may continue to wane.

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Trump’s defenders have been quick to argue that it’s far too early to make anything of all this, and they might have a point. There are good reasons not to draw too sweeping conclusions at this stage of his second term:

1. Presidential job approval rarely stays trending in one direction for long. Although Trump is currently on a downward trajectory, his outlook could improve if, among other things, the economy eventually bounces back (which you can always bank on).

2. Relatedly, there is precedent for a president rebounding from a sluggish start due to a bad economy. Following the stagflation of the late 1970s, U.S. Fed Chair Paul Volcker triggered two recessions in hopes of stabilizing the economy, including one in the first half of Ronald Reagan’s first term. Though the public rebelled, leading to a diminished approval rating for Reagan and substantial Democratic gains in the 1982 midterms, Reagan won re-election in one of the most lopsided victories ever.²

3. Trump’s net approval is slightly better among registered voters (-0.8 points) than among all adults (-4.4), a sign that his lower numbers are being driven more by those who aren’t registered.³

4. Given how polarized American politics have become even in just the past four years, Trump’s floor is likely higher this time around than last time, meaning he may have a stronger core base of support. This could limit any potential political fallout from his less popular moves.

5. Current disapproval does not necessarily equate to permanent abandonment. Americans do still like some of Trump’s early moves, including those related to immigration and border security. A recent focus group of 2024 Trump voters in the all-important swing state of Michigan was instructive: although 10 of the 13 participants said they weren’t seeing what they voted for out of Trump so far, just one said they would change their vote if they could redo the 2024 election.

Still, there are valid arguments for why these early stumbles could be a canary in the coal mine, and why Trump may struggle to get back above water moving forward.

1. Trump is a lame-duck president, and historically, such presidents have lower floors and lower average approval ratings. According to Nate Silver, “In their first terms, the average president since Truman who went on to serve a second term had an average approval rating of 58.0 percent and a floor of 47.1 percent. In these presidents’ respective second terms, however, the average was 48.0 percent and the floor was 37.7 percent.”

2. In his first term, Trump’s net approval rating hit negative territory early on—and then stayed there for the rest of his tenure. As a deeply polarizing figure, Trump has always had a lower ceiling than most presidents. If he can’t pull some of the skeptics back into the fold—like the voters who were cautiously optimistic heading into his second term and willing to withhold judgment until they saw what he did—he might remain underwater for the duration of his presidency.

3. Voters’ economic attitudes tend to lag behind improvements in the economy. Even if the more negative effects of Trump’s early economic policies begin to subside, it’s possible voters’ perceptions of how he has handled these issues won’t catch up for some time, which could dampen his overall approval rating for a while. We have recent evidence of this, too: though many economic indicators improved during the second half of Joe Biden’s presidency, many Americans still didn’t feel that things were getting better, and Biden’s approval rating suffered the cost of that.

4. Trump, who has rarely been known to back away from a fight—especially when advised to—could easily double down on his more unpopular policies, which risks keeping him in negative approval territory even longer.

Of course, even in the face of these real struggles for Trump, none of it means that voters will necessarily abandon Republicans in the next presidential election or even in the midterms. As we’ve written extensively, Democrats have a lot of work to do before they can begin dreaming about a landslide in 2026 or winning back the White House in 2028. But Trump’s early popularity decline should not be written off as mere noise, either. If he doesn’t figure out a way to turn things around—and sooner than later—his party may be facing down steep losses just as quickly as they returned to power.

1. Since Harry Truman’s presidency

2. Though one obvious difference this time is that Trump will be term-limited in 2028.

3. However, he also started in even better shape with registered voters, so his fall-off with them since January has been even harder than his decline overall.