WASHINGTON — Weeks after suffering bruising election losses across the country, and facing an unusually tight special congressional race in ruby red Tennessee, President Trump told reporters Tuesday that a “fake” national narrative has taken hold of an economy in trouble.
Americans are employed and consuming more than ever, he said. Foreign tariffs and investments are bringing in trillions of dollars. “The word ‘affordability,’” Trump added, “is a Democrat scam.”
It was a message in defiance of stark public opinion polling that shows a clear majority of Americans, across all ages and demographic groups, increasingly concerned with the state of the economy and the president’s approach.
A Fox News poll released before Thanksgiving found that 76% view the economy negatively. Surveys conducted since the holiday put Trump at the lowest point of his second term, and lower than any of his predecessors at this point in their second term since President Nixon. Gallup found that 36% approve of his job performance, with 60% disapproving, and an Economist/YouGov poll saw only 32% of Americans support Trump’s response to the country’s affordability crisis.
“Trump was not shy about promising to lower prices on Day One,” said Bill Galston, chair of the governance studies program at the Brookings Institution. “Not only do they not see prices coming down, but they don’t believe he is focused on those problems, taking the type of bold steps they expected him to take on the economy.”
Four key voter blocs — young adults between 18 and 29 years old, Hispanics, moderates and independents — are among those that swung most dramatically to Trump in last year’s election, and are most likely to respond to changing circumstances. “He is doing badly with all of them,” Galston said.
“There wasn’t a realignment that was a permanent shift of sympathy — they were dissatisfied with President Biden’s performance, so they decided to give Trump another chance,” Galston added. “But he didn’t own them. He just rented them. And the rent’s coming due.”
Republicans holding the line
The downward trend in support for Trump started over the spring once a trickle of revelations on the president’s ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, as well as his increasing focus on foreign conflicts, began dividing his core base of supporters.
Gallup now finds Trump’s support among GOP voters at 84% — the lowest of his second term so far — and at 25% among independents, his lowest ever.
Still, Trump’s remaining support suggests he continues to enjoy broad approval among Republican voters for his overall job performance, even if they disagree with some of his economic or foreign policy positions, analysts said.
“Compared to other presidents, Trump has a higher floor and a lower ceiling,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster who has consulted Republican senators and governors for more than three decades.
For now, independents and moderates dissatisfied over prices and pocketbook issues are driving the president’s decline in support. While Trump earns higher approval numbers for his policies on immigration and crime, fewer Americans are listing those issues as top priorities.
“The administration is clearly at the lowest point of this term, but if you look at perspective, the averages are nowhere near the lowest point over the course of his two terms,” Ayres said. “He’s still holding up very well among Republicans. What’s causing the drop is a serious decline among independents.”
Trump has repeatedly demonstrated political agility over the last decade, recovering from challenging polling environments before. But his inability to run for another term, coupled with increasing attention on the age and stamina of the 79-year-old president, could be forcing Republican lawmakers and voters to reconcile with life for the party after his departure, analysts said.
It was in the doldrums of the 2008 financial crisis, with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still raging and taking the lives of American servicemembers, that President Bush faced a dire 25% approval rating, driven by a collapse in Republican support that hit a low of 55%. That year, Democrats surged to their greatest electoral victory since the 1960s.
“It’s certainly possible that a combination of circumstances can drive a president’s approval rating within their own party much lower than Trump’s current Gallup number,” said Andrew Sinclair, an assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. “What the theoretical floor is, or whether Trump’s theoretical floor is higher or lower than Bush’s, I don’t know — but we have seen lower within-party approval ratings, and that’s probably at least possible here.”
Ominous signs for the midterms
Historically, when a president’s job approval is above 50%, the president’s party still loses an average 14 House seats in midterm elections.
Much can change over the course of a year in politics. But Trump’s current standing bodes poorly for the party’s ability to hold its majority in the House of Representatives, regardless of the outcome of a series of mid-decade redistricting efforts across the country, Ayres said.
“Attitudes about Republican candidates are so closely tied to Trump — he has so thoroughly taken over the party — that there’s not a lot of room to differentiate,” he added. “But the president’s job approval is absolutely critical to his party’s performance in the midterms.”
The most recent Gallup poll showed that Trump’s remaining hold on Republican voters does not extend to his allies in Congress. Republican support for Congress’ performance dropped from 54% in September to 23% today, the survey found, with only 15% of independents and 4% of Democrats expressing approval.
Scrutiny of the GOP majority will only intensify this month, as Trump and congressional Republicans race to address a significant affordability concern: the expiration of expanded tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, which could see premiums skyrocket at the start of next year. The path forward for Republican healthcare legislation that could pass, much less with popular support, is far from clear.
Trump appeared aware of the polling landscape entering the holiday week, claiming on social media that he had just received “the highest poll numbers of my ‘political career.’” Just days earlier, he had acknowledged the reality of the problem.
“So, my poll numbers just went down,” Trump said, addressing the Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, “but with smart people, they’ve gone way up.”
What else you should be reading
The must-read: Unintended competitors: Why L.A. preschools are closing as transitional kindergarten thrives
The deep dive: San Bernardino: The mass shooting that helped Trump redefine America’s immigration debate
The L.A. Times Special: Hard lives in California’s fields: ‘The American dream eats us alive’
More to come,
Michael Wilner
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