Thursday, 17 Apr 2025

Poll position: Where Trump stands with Americans 11 weeks into his 2nd White House term

President Donald Trump's approval ratings in national polls have been edging downward in the 11 weeks since he returned to power in the White House.


Poll position: Where Trump stands with Americans 11 weeks into his 2nd White House term
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"More than any in American history," Trump touted a week ago.

The president stands at 43% approval and 53% disapproval in a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted March 31-April 2, and he is also underwater - at 46%-51% - in a Wall Street Journal poll in the field March 27-April 1.

While a survey from the Daily Mail, which was also conducted over the past week, suggested Trump's approval rating is in positive territory, the majority of the national public opinion surveys in the field since mid-March indicate Trump in negative territory.

Trump has seen his numbers edge down slightly since the start of his second term, when an average of his polls indicated the president's approval rating in the low 50s and his disapproval in the mid-40s.

Additionally, the latest surveys were conducted nearly entirely before Trump's blockbuster tariff announcement last week, which sparked a trade war with the nation's top trading partners, triggered a massive sell-off in the financial markets, and increased concerns about a recession.

When asked about the market plunge, the president told reporters on Sunday evening, "Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something."

Daron Shaw, a politics professor and chair at the University of Texas who serves as a member of the Fox News Decision Team and is the Republican partner on the Fox News poll, calls the economy "the 800-pound gorilla."

According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 37% of Americans approve of the job the president's doing on the economy, with 52% giving him a thumbs down.

Trump's numbers on the economy are slightly better in the Wall Street Journal poll - 44% approval and 52% disapproval - but still underwater.

Shaw suggested that over the past week the president has been "slowly losing the argument that tariffs are part of a larger program that will bring down prices."

The only issue where Trump is in positive territory in the Reuters/Ipsos and Wall Street Journal polls is immigration and border security, which, along with inflation, was another top issue that helped catapult him back into the White House.

However, Shaw noted that Trump's success has blunted the importance of the issue.

"The broader narrative is that he's had success on border security and has essentially tabled that as an issue," he argued. "One of the problems of succeeding is that it's something that you no longer really talk about. It's no longer at the top of people's issue priorities. So one of his dominant issues has been neutralized by his success on the issue."

While Trump's poll numbers are edging down in most surveys, they are still superior to ratings during his first term in office. Trump's poll numbers were almost entirely in negative territory in most surveys for the entirety of his first term in office.

"Keep these numbers in perspective. The numbers he's averaging right now are still higher than he was at any point during his first presidency," veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse told Fox News.

Newhouse emphasized that Trump's Republican "base is strongly behind him," which was not the case at the start of his first term in the White House.

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