Trump Polling Numbers Plunge Over Economy, Immigration, Defying Court

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dipped below 40 percent, according to a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The survey also found that about four in 10 Americans say Trump has been a “terrible” president during his second term, with about one in 10 describing his performance as “poor,” and two in 10 saying he has been “average.” Only three in 10 Americans rated Trump’s performance as “great” or “good.”

The AP/NORC Center survey is among multiple recent polls that indicate that as the president’s first 100 days in office nears, any public positivity about Trump is waning. Even Republicans, though they still largely stand behind him, are losing confidence that he is steering the country in the right direction.

The survey revealed that 44 percent of Americans say Trump is focused on the wrong priorities. Only 54 percent of Republicans say he is focused on the right priorities (with 26 percent saying he is focused on an even mix of issues and 13 percent saying he is focused on the wrong priorities), versus 75 percent of Democrats saying he is focused on the wrong priorities. A growing majority of Americans disapprove of Trump overall as president (59 percent versus 39 percent approving). The survey comprised 1260 U.S. adults and was conducted April 17-21.

Meanwhile, a recent New York Times/Siena College poll published Friday finds Trump’s approval rating at 42 percent, a historic low this early in a president’s term. Among the issues where his popularity has been tanking are the economy and immigration, despite there being some support regarding deportations. Fifty-one percent of those polled disapprove of his handling of immigration. Fifty-five percent disapprove of his managing the economy. 

Voters are also opposing several of his executive orders, with the broad majority saying they’d prefer limits to the power Trump has been wielding through unilateral actions. For example, 61 percent of voters, including 33 percent of Republicans, said a president should not have the authority to enact tariffs without authorization from Congress; and 54 percent, including 26 percent of Republicans, say he should not be allowed to end programs enacted by Congress. 

The numbers rise when it comes to overreach on immigration, with 63 percent, including 40 percent of Republicans, saying a president should not be able to deport legal immigrants who have protested Israel. Trump’s threat to send American citizens to prison in El Salvador is also wildly unpopular, with 73 percent of voters, including 56 percent of Republicans, saying a president should not be able to do that.

Trump’s defiance of the court garnered one of the biggest swings of disapproval in the Times/Siena poll — which comprised 913 voters and was conducted April 21-24 — with 76 percent of voters, and 61 percent of Republicans, saying a president should not be able to ignore the Supreme Court.

The polling plunge is clearly irking Trump. The president ranted on Truth Social about a Fox News poll showing Americans are skeptical of Trump’s handling of the economy. “Rupert Murdoch has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so,” Trump wrote on Thursday. “This ‘pollster’ has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years. Also, and while he’s at it, he should start making changes at the China Loving Wall Street Journal. It sucks!!!”

Reuters and Gallup also released polls in recent days showing Trump tanking, particularly on the economy as his on-again, off-again tariffs have led to global instability.

Despite the president’s public rage, two Trump advisers tell Rolling Stone that they aren’t sweating the recent string of negative polls for the president, largely because — regardless of what Trump’s unpopularity in the coming years could mean for other Republican candidates — the president entered office as lame duck. Despite his public flirtations with subverting the Constitution and running for a third White House term, Trump retook power as someone who presumably does not need to worry about his poll numbers weighing down a reelection bid. 

“He usually says the polls are fake anyways, and after the 2024 popular vote victory, he sees even greater justification in saying the bad polls are fake now,” one Trump adviser says.

On Saturday night, John McLaughlin, one of the top Trump pollsters for his presidential campaigns, messaged Rolling Stone: “That’s a terribly skewed poll. Only 37 percent are Trump 2024 voters. We received 50 percent. I’d love to know the New York Times’ explanation. Are we back to the fake polls of the last eight years?”

The new AP poll that shows the president’s approval rating dipping into the thirties would have set off alarm sirens at Trump headquarters in a past era.

During the hellish summer of 2020, when Trump was running for reelection amid the skyrocketing death toll and economic implosion of the Covid-19 pandemic, several top advisers to Trump on his campaign or in his administration were anxiously glued to the public polls and private Republican data, biting their nails over the president’s approval rating dropping.

If Trump inched too close “to the mid-thirties,” a senior Trump adviser at the time said, “we lose.”

In November 2020, Trump indeed lost that election. And today, just three months into his new administration, there is already some high-quality polling showing the president moving closer to the mid-thirties range of wrecked political capital.

Trump may be griping on Truth Social about his declining popularity, but his camp doesn’t seem to be too worried.