Donald Trump Approval Rating at Second-Term Low With Conservative Pollster
 

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U.S. President Donald Trump's approval rating has hit a second-term low, according to a pollster said to be supportive of Republican candidates.

By Kate Plummer

According to Rasmussen Reports, a pollster that has been accused of leaning toward Republican candidates but claims to be independent, Trump's net approval rating is -8 percentage points. As per their tracker, this is the president's lowest approval rating since his second term started in January.

The White House sent Newsweek a link to a post Trump made on Truth Social which read: "So many Fake Polls are being shown by the Radical Left Media, all slanted heavily toward Democrats and Far Left Wingers. In the Fair Polls, and even the Reasonable Polls, I have the Best Numbers I have ever had and, why shouldn’t I? I ended eight Wars, created the Greatest Economy in the History of our Country, kept Prices, Inflation, and Taxes down, and am setting standards for Right Track / Wrong Track for a future U.S.A. Fake News will never change, they are evil and corrupt but, as I look around my beautiful surroundings, I say to myself, 'Oh, look, I’m sitting in the Oval Office!'"

Why It Matters

Rasmussen is said to favor Republicans and Trump has in the past praised it as an accurate pollster while he has attacked others for apparent bias. Negative polling from Rasmussen will, therefore, come as a blow to his narrative.

What To Know

According to Rasmussen Report's daily tracker, 45 percent of likely U.S. voters approve of Trump's job performance while 53 percent disapprove.

It polled 1,500 likely voters and there was a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.

The tracker showed that Trump's popularity peaked at the start of his second term, when 56 percent of people approved of him on January 23.

It has fluctuated since then and fell to 47 percent in April, when Trump first implemented his tariffs policy, and to 46 percent in October during the first few days of the ongoing government shutdown.

Mark Mitchell, head of polling at Rasmussen said Trump's approval rating was "dropping, driven strongly by independents, as you would expect in a shutdown."

"We also had polling that says people want him more focused on a domestic policy agenda, so I think that sentiment is contributing to the drop," he told Newsweek.

He added: "The drop isn't as big as the last big shut down, and his approval is higher than where [Joe] Biden and Trump were at this point before. So it's bad, but not a death knell catastrophe. And of course, my numbers don't show him doing as badly as fake polls like the AP. And of course, our poll never showed Biden doing as badly as some others, either."

It comes amid other negative polling about the president. A recent poll by The Economist/YouGov found Trump’s approval rating at its lowest level since he returned to office in January, with 39 percent of people saying they approved of the job he is doing, while 58 percent disapproving, resulting in a net approval rating of -19 points.

According to RealClearPolitics, which aggregates several polls, the president's net approval rating is at -8.9 percentage points, the lowest in his second term so far, as per the website's tracker.

The polling average found that 44.3 percent of people approve of Trump's job performance and 53.2 percent disapprove of it, amid an ongoing government shutdown.

Nate Silver, who founded 538, said in a blog that at the start of last week, Trump's net approval rating was -9.2 percentage points, but by the end it had declined to -10.8 points.

What People Are Saying

President Donald Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social on Monday: "So many Fake Polls are being shown by the Radical Left Media, all slanted heavily toward Democrats and Far Left Wingers…Fake News will never change, they are evil and corrupt but, as I look around my beautiful surroundings, I say to myself, 'Oh, look, I’m sitting in the Oval Office!'"

What Happens Next

Pollsters will continue to track Trump's approval rating throughout his presidency.