Trump's approval rating hits lowest level of his career, poll finds - USA Today
President Donald Trump’s approval rating has reached the lowest level of his political career, with less than one-third of Americans approving of his performance in the White House, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The poll, released on Monday, Sept. 21, found that only 32% of Americans approved of the president's job performance. Monday’s results mark a three-point drop from last week’s Reuters/Ipsos poll, which gave Trump a small boost in the polls.
Trump’s 32% approval rating on Monday sets a new record low across both of his terms in office. Previously, Trump’s floor had been 33%, which he had reached in December 2017 and held for three weeks in a row this August.
Cost of living has been a deep source of unpopularity for the president, as only 17% of Americans said they approved of Trump’s handling of the issue.
According to Reuters/Ipsos, the four-day poll was conducted among 1,277 U.S. adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The president’s slipping approval numbers come as Republicans have soured on Trump’s handling of the cost of living and the increasingly unpopular war in Iran.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 73% of Republicans approved of Trump’s job performance, a nine percentage-point drop from last week’s poll. The Iran war has also eroded Republican support for the president as gasoline and diesel prices have skyrocketed in recent weeks.
According to the newest poll, a majority of Republicans, 51%, say they disapprove of Trump’s handling of the cost of living, a first for the president.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted only hours after he was sworn into office in 2025 found that 47% of Americans approved of Trump.
Now, a year and a half later and with looming midterm elections, Trump has dropped 15 percentage points and has fallen even lower than former President Joe Biden’s lowest approval rating of 35% in October 2024.
Trump’s continued unpopularity could prove helpful for Democrats in November as recent polling from NBC News and Fox News found Democrats leading the GOP by 5 and 7 percentage points, respectively, in a generic congressional ballot, while Monday's poll had the lead sitting by 8 percentage points.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at fernando.cervantes@usatodayco.com and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
