President Donald Trump's approval rating has fallen to 30 percent, its lowest level of his second term, as Democratic voters report greater engagement and motivation ahead of the November midterm elections, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Trump's approval rating is 8 percentage points lower than former President Joe Biden's at a comparable point in the 2022 midterm campaign, when 38 percent of Americans approved of Biden's performance and 59 percent disapproved, according to Pew's October 2022 survey. Much of the decline in Trump's approval has come from his own 2024 voters, the survey found.
While about two-thirds still approve of his job performance, that is down from 95 percent at the start of his term, with some of the sharpest declines among Hispanic and younger voters. The poll was conducted from September 28 to October 4 among roughly 5,000 U.S. adults, including 3,917 registered voters. With 26 days remaining in the 2026 midterm campaign, Trump is also playing a significant factor in voters' congressional choices.
The survey found that 63 percent of registered voters say Trump will be a factor in their vote for Congress, with more than twice as many saying their vote is against him versus in support of him. By comparison, an October 2022 Pew Research Center poll found that 36 percent of voters said their congressional vote was in opposition to Biden, while 19 percent viewed it as a vote in support of him. Grant Davis Reeher, professor of political science at Syracuse University, told Newsweek that voting against the president in a midterm is not unusual.
"Pretend that I'm on the ballot,” Trump told the crowd at the Republican National Committee's first-ever midterm convention in Dallas in September. Just one more time." Democratic voters are showing higher levels of engagement heading into the midterms and are more likely than Republicans to say it matters which party wins control of Congress. The latest survey found that 78 percent of Democratic supporters said it mattered, compared with 69 percent of Republican supporters.
The poll also found widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the nation, with 77 percent of Americans dissatisfied and 22 percent satisfied. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll conducted on September 26 found that 42 percent of voters had not yet firmly settled on their midterm choice. He said it would largely be expected that voters’ preferences would be more settled by this point, given that midterm elections generally serve as a referendum on the president, as well as considering Trump’s extensive policy agenda and low approval rating.
I take the large number of votes still being in play as potential good news for the Republicans, especially in those close Senate races that Republicans have won more easily in the past,” Reeher said. An AP-NORC poll conducted September 24-28 found 31 percent of Americans approved of his job performance, while 69 percent disapproved. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted September 24-27 found 34 percent of voters approved and 61 percent disapproved, while a CBS News/YouGov poll conducted September 30-October 2 found 39 percent approved and 61 percent disapproved.
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